The Family G-Man: I Want To Believe by Neoxphile & Felinefemme
by neoxphile
Summary: In 2008, six years after leaving The X-Files for the hit show Jose Chung's The Truth Is Out There, Mulder is asked to help investigate the disappearance of two women, including FBI agent Monica Bannan. Scully has more pressing concerns at home, at least until Mulder's safety becomes paramount.
1. Atypical Afternoon at the Mulder Home

Title: The Family G-Man: I Want To Believe

Authors: Neoxphile and FelineFemme

Spoilers: X-Files seasons 1-9, X-Files: I Want To Believe, "The Family G-Man," "The Family G-Man: One Fine Summer," "The Family G-Man: Confessions and Connections"

Rating: whatever the movie's was

Summary: in 2008, six years after leaving The X-Files for the hit show Jose Chung's The Truth Is Out There, Mulder is asked to help investigate the disappearance of two women, including FBI agent Monica Bannan. Scully has more pressing concerns at home, at least until Mulder's safety becomes paramount.

* * *

February 8, 2008

A dark dreary February afternoon is not the ideal time for a doctor's appointment, but that's when Scully's doctor managed to squeeze her in on one of her and Mulder's rare afternoons off from filming, so she couldn't complain too much. By the time they get home, it's snowing at a rapid clip, and the walkway is already covered in a white blanket three inches deep. "Guess we'll have to shovel," Mulder remarks as he takes the keys out of the ignition.

"Get David and Jared to help you," Scully suggests, referring to their nine-year-old twins, as she reluctantly opens the passenger side door. The car's interior is toasty warm, and she's not eager to go out into the wind. Still, she can't sit in the car all afternoon…

"You're hoping to have them burn off some energy?" Mulder asks.

"You bet," she agrees, gingerly stepping out into the driveway. "Little league's still a long way off." Of all the kids, their twin sons take after Mulder the most when it comes to their sleep patterns. If they don't do something to tire themselves out, they'll be awake by five a.m. which no one in the house appreciates because they're never _quiet_ early risers.

It must have rained a little before it began to snow, because before she gets very far from the car her boots find an icy patch under it, and she begins to slip.

"Whoa," Mulder murmurs, grabbing her elbow before she loses her balance completely. For a moment she's reminded of another time when he literally kept her from falling and gallantly promised that he always would. That was a year before they married, and so far he's made good on the promise. But then he says "We'll salt out here too," and she's reminded of how much has changed since his act of chivalry prompted an elderly observer to tell them that they'd have beautiful children. _Well, she wasn't wrong about that_, Scully thinks with a small smile.

"Thanks," she tells him as they make their way towards the house. She can hear some of their kids outside already, probably playing.

"No problem."

She waits for him to say something about how her safety is especially important to him right then, but he doesn't and she's glad for it. And she's even gladder when they reach the front door and leave the cold outside.

"David! Jared!" Mulder calls, wandering deeper into the house as she takes her coat off and hangs it.

They could easily afford to hire someone to do the shoveling, but Mulder insists that they ought to do it themselves, and it's good for their sons to help him do it. For now she lets him continue to insist that, but when they get older… fortunately, he's very fit for a man in his forties still, so she suspects most of the kids will be out of the house before it's an issue. Most of them. And it's not like she has a leg to stand on lately when it comes to doing things better left to younger people, she thinks, hand snaking around behind her to rub the small of her back where it aches.

Mulder returns a couple of minutes later with the boys, and he lets them grumble for a moment before pointing at the coat closet. They figure out that complaining won't get them anywhere and greet their mother before pulling on gloves and coats.

"I want the green shovel," Jared's saying as they head out, and she thinks that she hears David object, but maybe it's Sammy. Sammy was supposed to be writing a report but when Mulder had fetched them a moment before she heard him proudly declare that not only was it done, Page had only found four typos before taking their little sisters outside to build a snowman.

Scully goes to the playroom to see who is inside still, then heads back to the foyer so she can see if she can see how Mulder and their older sons are making out. There's not that much snow, and with three helpers it shouldn't take long before they come back in. As soon as they do, it'll be time to think about getting dinner started.

Just as she reaches the window, the front door swings open, letting in her oldest and youngest children. "Hi Mom," Page greets her. "Can I make us hot chocolate?"

"If you do it right now so you're done before I need to start cooking and if you're careful with the stove."

A year or two earlier this statement would have been met with a moody reply, but Page has a better handle on the perils of adolescence now that she's thirteen. "Always."

"Nuh uh," Zoe says then. "Remember you burned the Mac and cheese last month?"

The blonde teenager sighs and gives her five-year-old sister a wounded look. "Of course I remember. You're not supposed to bring it up and make me feel bad about it, though."

"Oops."

"Miss Spencer says you should say something nice if you hurt someone's feelings on accident," Brianna tells her twin, referring to their preschool teacher. They both like Miss Spenser so much that they cried when they figured out they'll have a different teacher for kindergarten in September.

"Oh." Zoe thinks about this. "You and Sammy always got the cleanest bathroom is the house," she ventures with a forgive-me-yet? smile.

"Great," Page drawls. "That's sure to make me popular in high school. Come on, pipsqueaks."

"We're not pipsqueaks!" they predictably protest despite being so much smaller than their eldest sibling; to Sammy's considerable envy, due to a growth spurt Page is now as tall as Scully, and he's still two and a half inches behind her. The younger set of twins are both small for their age, which is one reason Scully's glad they won't be starting public school until the fall of the following year.

In the kitchen Page puts a kettle of water on the stove to heat, then asks the younger girls if they could go and find out if the other kids still in the house want hot chocolate too, adding that they don't need to go outside because she's sure everyone outside will. The brunette twins rush off eagerly, but not quite so energetically as the older set of twins would have at their age.

"So?" Scully asks, knowing that Page has sent her sisters off so they can speak in what passes for private in their house.

Page squirms a little under her gaze. "Um…I know you were worried, so I want to know if your doctor's appointment, went, uh, okay."

Scully has to clamp down on a sigh before it escapes. As hard as she's tried to keep her level of anxiety from infecting the kids too, it's clear that the older ones are perceptive enough to realize Mom's Been Really Worried lately. Smiling as best as she can she tells Page, "Dr. Hart says everything looks good."

"And he did all those tests you and Daddy told us about?" Page asks, still looking concerned.

"Yes. They all came back, and there are no abnormalities."

"Oh, wow." Now Page looks relieved, and it doesn't surprise her mother to be hugged a second later. "I'm so glad!"

"Me too," Scully admits, hugging her daughter back.

After a moment Page lets her go and takes a step back. "So, did he also tell you if it's going to be a boy or a girl?"

"He did, but your dad and I haven't discussed telling you kids yet," Scully tells her. At twenty-two weeks gestation the baby is now more than big enough that Dr. Hart was able to give them a definitive answer to the question of gender during the appointment as well as a clean bill of health.

"Aww, come on, Mom," Page wheedles. "A new baby is big enough a surprise, isn't it?"

_Well, she's got me there_, Scully thinks.

When Scully began to get sick a few months earlier, at first she and Mulder chalked it up to the flu. But when it went on for weeks, they both began to become very concerned. He has rarely ever spoken up about what it was like in his life before back when she got cancer instead of Krycek, but she could tell by the way he looked at her that it was something he was thinking about even if he didn't say so. And to be truthful, she thought about it too.

After three weeks passed and she still wasn't well, she went to her primary care physician fearing the worst. Dr. Jewel carefully listened to her symptoms, did an exam, and suggested a pregnancy test. Scully's response was to laugh and tell her that the idea of her being pregnant was either ridiculous or insulting because Mulder had gotten a vasectomy five years earlier, and she certainly hadn't slept with another man. Jewel asked her to humor her…and after Scully did just to shut her up, Jewel then recommended that Mulder return to his doctor himself before handing her case over to Dr. Hart.

Mulder took the news that his vasectomy failed a lot better than she did, telling her that somehow it's not too surprising that he's one of a fraction of a percent of men to have them fail, not when the odds of having two sets of identical twins in one family are also infinitesimal and that happened in their family too. Where she was worried sick, sometimes literally, about having a baby that far into her forties, he seemed to vacillate between concern for her and the baby and what seemed to her to be an absurd pride in his own virility that irritated her.

Once they realized that they were expecting _again_, there was no question about what to do, just how they would cope if there turned out to be anything wrong with their unanticipated baby. Mulder had surprised her by telling her that he felt the same way as he did when they were younger and taking care of the infant half-demon Louie had prompted him to tell her that they'd welcome any child of theirs, even if it wasn't perfect. She of course agreed because even if there were problems she could never do anything to harm a child of theirs on purpose, not with what she'd been raised to believe about morality.

This afternoon has her feeling better about the new baby than most, and she's sure it's because she's relieved that her past their prime ova haven't caused her surprise child any damage. It's been hard wrapping her head around the idea of another baby, too, because while she probably wouldn't have minded more after Zoe and Brianna they thought that a vasectomy had put a definitive end to the expansion of their family, and she'd made her peace with that years earlier. Unmaking your peace with something, even a good something, feels odd.

It's her hope that maybe from this point on, with a lot less to worry about now, she'll begin to enjoy her pregnancy more. At least so far it's been less physically difficult than the last one. When she told Mulder that she found that surprising given she's more than five years older than the last time, he pointed out that she's only half as pregnant as then, which is true. Fortunately there's only one baby in there, not two. And thank the Lord not four like Tara's second and last pregnancy.

"I'll talk to him about it," Scully promises Page.

"Do you think April will be nicer about things now that we don't have to worry about the baby being…sick?" Page asks then.

Scully wonders that herself. When they told the kids that she was pregnant two months earlier, she expected that Zoe and Brianna would be the ones who would take the news the least well. After all, they were the youngest, and had gotten to enjoy that position in the family years longer than any of their siblings had. But they actually seemed pleased by the idea of having a little brother or sister to boss around someday soon.

The older kids seemed to be a mixture of confused, concerned (just the ones old enough to understand that having babies is riskier at older ages), and somewhat pleased.

Except for April, who had given both her parents a disgusted look and declared, "This is _so_ embarrassing!"

Mulder had given their almost eleven-year-old daughter a confused look and repeated, "Embarrassing?"

"If you have another baby, all my friends are going to know you still, you still _do it_. At your ages!" the preteen wailed in response.

"Considering Mom and Dad are still married and not having affairs, most people assume they still do it with each other," Page had told April, making their mother blush.

"But now they'll know for sure!"

Scully's blushing had only gotten worse when Sammy decided to help defend them. "Your forties isn't too old to do it. I hope I'm still doing it in my forties too."

"Still?" Mulder had asked, sounding like he was going to choke. She couldn't tell at the time if he was trying not to laugh or had actually been worried.

"Dad! I don't mean I am _now_," twelve-year-old Sammy had protested, and the relieved look on Mulder's face had suggested that he had indeed interpreted Sammy's comment that way. "But when I do find someone to. Well, you know. I hope we do for years and years, you know?"

"Uh, I don't know what to say about that, Sammy," Mulder had said faintly. "That's good, I guess."

"Yeah, so I totally don't blame you and mom for sti…" Sammy trailed off then when he looked at their faces.

By that point Scully had wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. They'd thought teaching the kids where babies came from and what to expect during puberty would be the most uncomfortable conversations they'd ever had with them. But they were so very wrong.

"Mom?" Page asks, pulling her head out of the clouds.

"Hmm? I don't know. We'll have to hope," Scully finally answers Page's question. If they're lucky it'll turn out that April's distaste has really been masking worry that the baby could turn out not to be chromosomally normal. Of all the kids she was the most interested in medical things, and occasionally that led to her having worries she shouldn't really need to.

"She'll get over it," Page says but her tone implies that she's not sure of that herself. "By the time we get to hold him or her for sure."

The idea that April might on the other hand still be moody over it until July does not gladden Scully's heart. But what does is when the baby kicks and Page notices. "Can I feel that?"

"Of course."

Page puts her hand flat on Scully's belly, then looks awed when the baby obligingly kicks again. "That is so cool. Does it feel different from the inside?"

"Yup."

"I'm going to wait until I go to college and get married first, so don't worry, but…I'm definitely going to do this too," Page confides. "I just hope I'm as good at it as you are."

The thought of Page wanting to be a mother someday too makes her happy, especially since it's the first time they've discussed it since she's been old enough to understand that you don't _have to_ be a parent or get married just because you've grown up, which seems to be what most small children believe. She can't resist teasing Page, "You hope to be as good at it as me? You mean you want a kajillion kids too?"

Page instantly looks worried, obviously giving the thought of ten kids serious thought. "Um, maybe not that many. But a few."

"What's a few?" Scully asks, curious now.

"Four or five?" Page suggests.

"Oh, I see, a small family."

"You must think Aunt Missy and Uncle Charlie's families are tiny then," Page shoots back with a smile.

"How my little brother and Elaine ended up with just one kid, I'll never know."

"It seemed like Uncle Bill was going to too," Page points out. "But now there's five of them!"

Scully smirks at this. Just a week earlier Mattie sent her a video of the quads' latest antics, which he confided had gotten him in trouble with Bill for taping instead of stopping it, but capturing them on film wrapping each other up in toilet paper 'to be mummies' had totally been worth getting grounded a week for. At least he's having a lot more fun being an older brother now that his three small sisters and brother are no longer needy babies, she muses. And poor Brandon has no one to play with, she thinks, though given her oldest nephew is now a college freshman he probably doesn't mind.

But still, it would be entertaining to alarm her little brother with the suggestion that he and his wife could give it another go. They're both younger than her, after all. "You know, you should call your uncle Charlie and ask if he's **ever** going to give Brandon a brother or sister. He doesn't have enough kids of his own to give him a hard time."

"Funny, Mom." Page snorts. "You know if you told Sammy to, he'd really do it."

She grins at her daughter. "And he'd tell you about it with a completely innocent look once he'd done it too."

Behind them the kettle on the stove begins to sing, and acting like a siren it brings the kids inside running to the kitchen.

Except for April.

But it's William who comes to join Scully and Page after everyone else grabs their mugs and scatters again. Giving them a suspicious look, William demands to know, "What are you talking about?"

Page seems torn, and after a moment or two apparently decides not to tell her youngest brother something that might get back to Sammy. "The new baby. Mom and Dad haven't decided if they're going to tell us if it's a boy or a girl yet."

The red-haired boy looks surprised. "But we know."

"We do?" Page asks skeptically.

He shrugs. "Well, I do anyway."

Page puts her hand on her hip. "Well, which is it?"

"A boy," William says confidently.

"You don't know that," Page protests. "How could you know that?"

"I just know," he declares confidently.

They both look at their mother, but Scully holds her hands up. "Very clever, but I'm not falling for it."

"Falling for what?" William asks, looking confused.

"If I take someone's side, then you'll know. And as I told your sister, Daddy and I haven't talked about it yet," she explains.

"Oh."

"Go on, before all the hot cocoa is gone," Scully tells them both, point them in the direction of the kitchen. They go without argument. As soon as they're done, she'll set up another round for the snow shovelers still outside.

Watching after them, Scully shakes her head. As they'd begun to suspect a couple of years earlier, William is able to figure out things that he shouldn't be able to, just like April does. But unlike his older sister, he has no qualms about declaring that he "knows" things he merely wants to be true.

Maybe it's better that way, she muses, given he's much more extroverted than April. The world isn't ready for an out-going child who can flawlessly tell what's going to happen, so it's probably better that people believe he's being fanciful even on the occasions when he's right. Silly kids make friends much more easily than ones who are eerie, and they're glad that he's made more friends in first grade after such a rough start back in kindergarten.

Humming to herself, she wanders back into the living room, feeds the fish, pets the cats, and calls her youngest girls back to hang their coats up again, properly this time, before Mulder and the boys come back in. The snow outside is getting heavier, and she wonders if they'll need to shovel again later, or if the storm will pick up so much that Alan will be watching all the kids the next day, not just the littlest ones after school.

All of the sudden Scully hears a distinctly liquidy sound, then Page exclaims "Will!"

There's a quieter "oops" just before Scully reaches the kitchen and an agitated teenage sigh. She's not overly surprised to see a flood of cocoa spreading across the counter and threatening to cascade down to the floor. "What happened?"

Page rolls her eyes. "Will wasn't paying attention and almost knocked me over when he bumped into me looking for marshmallows."

It's then that Scully notices that a chair has been dragged to the counter and a few doors to the upper cabinets hang open.

"I didn't mean to!"

"Yeah, well, I was in the middle of pouring," Page complains. "Now look."

William's eyes scan the mess of cocoa and knocked over mugs, and she'd almost swear that he's only really comprehending the extent of the problem he has created. Looking meek, he says "sorry."

"I'll clean it up," Scully announces. She refills the kettle and calmly puts it on the stove before turning back to the two children.

Her oldest gives her a wary look. "You will?"

"Yes. The two of you are going to put on your coats and boots and take Daisy for a walk."

Daisy, their five-month-old springer spaniel, has been dozing in her bed on the far side of the kitchen but her ears prick up at the word 'walk'.

"I was going to ask April and Christopher to do it, but it seems like the two of you need the exercise more," Scully concludes.

"But I just came in-" Page protests, but she breaks off with a sigh when Scully gives the wet counter a pointed look. "Come on, Will."

The second Page reaches for the leash Daisy scrambles out of her bed, tail wagging excitedly. It's hard not to smile as she watches the puppy dance around the kids as they put their winter gear on, or back on in Page's case.

Scully and Mulder had chosen Daisy specifically because she and her littermates were going to be old enough to go to their new homes at Christmas. They'd already brought the kids to see Daisy twice by the time they realized that Scully was pregnant, so her and Mulder's conversation over whether they should still get a puppy even though they'd told the kids that they couldn't have one before the youngest kids were five was very brief. Even they were unable to say "we're not taking you" while looking into the black and white puppy's soulful brown eyes. That's how Mulder found himself abandoned in Petco three days before Christmas, suddenly picking out puppy supplies himself when she'd run next door to find a restroom once she'd been struck by a sudden wave of morning sickness.

"What are you doing?" Mulder asks a couple of minutes later, startling her because he'd come into the room so quietly.

She notices his cheeks are pink from the cold when he plucks the sponge she's been using from her hand. "I can do it," she protests instead of answering his question. "It's all on the counter so it's not like I need to get on my hands and knees to do it."

Even after nearly fourteen years of marriage, he still smirks when she mentions getting on her hands and knees. She pokes him, making him smile instead.

"I know you can clear this up," he says, picking the mugs up and wiping under them. "But I don't want you to feel like you should have to." He glances at her. "You didn't do this, did you?"

"No, William did," she admits.

"Figures," Mulder mutters. "Alan asked me yesterday if I think some of his sudden perchance for causing chaos is due to being jealous about the babies coming soon." The second baby in this statement is Alan's own: he and his wife are expecting their first baby a couple of weeks after Scully is due, and Alan will be bringing his new daughter to the house while he works. Some people they've told about this arrangement think it's odd, but letting Alan have his baby there too is a small price to pay to get full time care for the baby without the stress of shopping for yet another new nanny. They're just grateful Alan was willing to work with them to find a way for him to move from part to full time like they need him to.

"What did you tell him?" Scully asks.

He shrugs and rinses the sponge. "It's the age. Sammy, David and Jared broke or otherwise ruined more things than I want to think about when they were his age."

"Probably that's it. We should keep an eye on it, though."

"Of course." He leans down and kisses her forehead.

"What's that for?"

"You're just awesome."

"Thanks, you're not too bad yourself."

The kettle on the stove that Scully filled to finish making cocoa whistles, bringing the boys who'd been shoveling running in.

She shakes her head slightly when Sammy jumps in to poor cocoa for the three of them. With all the activity in their house all the time, it's a minor wonder that she and Mulder ever found enough time alone to find themselves unexpectedly expecting.

"What are you smiling about?" Sammy asks suspiciously as soon as she thinks of something.

"Nothing," she declares.

"Your mind was really blank, or I'd regret it if I keep asking?"

"Yes."

"Mom, you can't answer yes to an 'or' question," David complains.

"She just did," Jared points out.

"I KNOW that, but..."

Still smirking to herself, Scully decides her earlier thought was right: a good lock on the door to the master bedroom definitely helps.

Eyeing Mulder as he referees, she decides it should help once everyone is sent to bed, too.


	2. A Missing Agent

February 9, 2008  
4:38 a.m.

The keening howl of the wind outside rouses Doggett from a light sleep, so he rolls over and looks out the window. Even in the dim street-lit predawn he can see that the snow is coming down at such a rapid clip that it's unlikely that either of his daughters will have school, so he makes a mental note to watch the news crawl for cancellations before closing his eyes again. It's only then that he becomes aware of another sound nearly drowned out by the voice of the wind: a faint whimpering.

Beside him in bed Reyes is dead to the world, but he knows she'll wake soon if he ignores the distressed noises, so he heaves himself out of bed and stretches as he leaves the room. She's been the one getting up most of the time considering that she talked HR into letting her tack all her unused vacation time onto the end of her leave but it seems unfair to ask her to get up if he's already awake.

He doesn't bother turning on the light in Jon-Jon's room because he can see the crib and its occupant well enough. Reaching into the crib he asks "what's the matter, big guy?" before carefully lifting up his four-month-old son. The dark-haired infant's crying tapers off to unhappy grumbling in his father's arms.

Doggett lucks out, discovering that his first suspicion - a wet diaper - is correct, so he's able to quickly calm the baby. Most nights he isn't such a good guesser.

Once the baby is changed, he sits with him in the rocking chair so he can yawn and watch the snow falling outside. Jon-Jon quickly nods off, no longer aware of the man holding him or anything else.

The wooden chair rapidly becomes uncomfortable, and as an ache settles in he, not for the first time, finds himself thinking, _maybe we shouldn't have waited so long_. He and Reyes hadn't set out to have their second baby almost four years after the first, but a whole host of reasons led them to this point. When he thinks of the fact that not only is Rebecca four, Hannah's already twelve and Luke and Gibson are only three months away from getting their undergraduate degrees, he can't help but feel old as father time. His oldest sons will be starting grad school before his youngest even takes his first steps.

Still, as absurd as he feels sometimes to have started all over with an infant at his age (but he's glad Monica is younger than Dana, though he'd never dare say that to either of them), he wouldn't have it any other way. Jon-Jon is a treasure he'd never part with. _Well_, he thinks as he gets up and lowers his sleeping little boy into the crib, _not for more than a few hours, anyway_.

He only makes it as far as the hallway before a phone in the kitchen begins to ring. Startled, he nearly trips over his feet in an effort to answer it before it wakes the whole house up. Glancing at the caller ID panel, he's somewhat relieved that it's the FBI calling at that time of night, not his sons. Luke and Gibson would never call at that hour if it wasn't a dire emergency, so he's glad it's only work. But as soon as the person on the other end of the line begins to speak, his relief that there's nothing personally important going on falls away and he begins to strategize how to deal with a situation that's still dire for someone else.

"What?" he answers the phone tiredly, not up for pleasantries.

"We have a missing agent," the voice on the other end of the line explains, and he can't immediately place him. Obviously the caller thinks he should know who he is because he hadn't bothered to mention their name. With that sort of self-importance, he figures the caller for a fellow AD.

"Who?" Doggett asks, feeling more awake and wary. One of his agents is sleeping in his bed, but there's always Leyla. What if her boyfriend woke up in the middle of the night and discovered her missing? With Leyla, there was always a possibility that she'd do something reckless like that.

"Monica Bannan," the voice announces. "You worked with her-"

"On that case in August, yeah," Doggett agrees, thinking about how the young agent had been lent to The X-Files for a couple of weeks when he and Leyla couldn't handle a case alone just before Jon-Jon was born. He'd liked her enough to be tempted to lure her away from her own division, but in the end she spoke so glowingly about her AD he hadn't had the heart to.

Now he wished that he had.

"I was hoping you'd be willing to help us search for her."

"Of course," Doggett says, looking at the snow as it comes down on the other side of the window pane.

"And I was hoping that you could aide us in enlisting some additional help," the other AD adds.

"Who?" Doggett asks. As soon as he's told who, he finds himself shaking his head.

* * *

Later  
JCTIOT Studio

A blazing light lit up a dime- sized patch on Aldous Reed's forehead as he speaks, pointing a finger at Mulder while he does. "It's asinine to even contemplate the existence of these, these... beings."

"Oh, it's okay," Mulder retorts with a smirk. "People won't think less of you for using the correct term. Genie."

"Correct term," Reed scoffs. "More like overactive imaginations."

"So you think all effects attributed to genii activity have logical explanations?" Scully interrupts them to ask Reed.

He gives her a suspicious look before raising his chin. "Definitely."

"Then how would you explain the man I autopsied who had no internal organs?"

Reed stares at the camera, apparently at a loss for words.

"And commercial," someone announces.

Reed grabs a glass of water and chugs it down. Mulder almost does the same, at least until he notices someone who isn't normally there speaking to Wayne. It's somewhat disorienting to see someone very familiar in a completely abnormal setting.

"Why doesn't everyone take 15?" Wayne suggests as he and Doggett approach the stage. Reed shrugs and pulls out his phone.

Mary Green is asking "no organs? Really?" when Scully looks over and starts. "John?"

"What are you doing here?" Mulder asks, standing. He offers his wife his arm when she gets up too. Mary notices and smiles, making him feel like a little boy. Scully doesn't really need to hold onto him, but he likes that she can.

Doggett smiles too, but it's strained. Mulder thinks that his gaze lingers on Scully's belly, but when he looks at her face, it's clear she hasn't noticed. "I'm afraid it's not a social call. Can we talk?"

"Sure, what's up?"

Doggett shifts from foot to foot, looking like an uncomfortable little boy too. "I know that neither of you are eager to revisit the FBI, but I'm here to ask you to consider helping with an FBI matter."

"What kind of matter?" Scully asks warily. Her hand unconsciously goes to her belly, as if to shield the child within from whatever Doggett will say next. Mulder tightens his grip on her slightly when he realizes how apprehensive she is.

The AD sighs. "There's a young agent missing. Monica Bannan. She helped me out on a case a few months ago, and I really liked her. I've been asked to join the taskforce that's been established to look for her. And I've been asked to approach you about participating too."

Mulder is still trying to decide if he should suggest accepting or declining when Scully asks "Why us?" When Doggett looks confused, she sighs and leans against Mulder. "There are any number of active agents that could be recruited to help find her. Surely there are enough between cases that simply adding warm bodies to the hunt isn't the issue. Something about this case warrants asking a couple of retired agents for help, and I want to know what that is," she concludes.

Mulder has to hide a smile; whoever it was that popularized the 'baby brain' meme surely hadn't met enough women like his wife. Instead of grinning openly, he adds an expectant look to hers.

To Doggett's credit, he doesn't squirm under their scrutiny. "There's a psychic aiding the case-"

"Not Yappi-" Mulder groans. "Don't tell me that fraud is back up to his old tricks."

"God, I hope not," Scully mutters.

It's clear Doggett is unfamiliar with the TV personality. "Oh, no. His name is Father Joe."

"A priest?" Scully asks.

"A former priest."

"Former?" she asks sharply. This has Mulder thinking of how often men voluntarily leave their vocation. He knows it doesn't happen often.

"Defrocked," Doggett finally admits. When she frowns, he says, "Please hear me out. For all his faults, he's having a positive effect on the search for Bannan."

"But not so positive you've found her," Scully says darkly.

"Well no."

"So...we're being asked for because we didn't kill Yappi?" Mulder finally asks.

Doggett shrugs. "I got the call before dawn. I didn't have the wherewithal to ask why you."

Scully glances down at her belly. "I'm not exactly up for fieldwork, John."

"You were out in the field plenty of times when you were pregnant before," Doggett blurts out, and then his cheeks turn a deep red, as if he can't believe he's just said that.

"Not at nearly forty-four," Scully replies sharply.

When he thinks that she's really going to get wound up, Mulder puts a hand on her arm, and she looks up at him. "It could have been us, once. One of our lives at stake." This doesn't seem to sway her like he thought it would, but his Scully doesn't have the memory of having been abducted by Duane Barry to give her empathy. "If not for the two of you and Skinner, it could've been me," he adds, and this moves her at last.

Scully sighs. "You're right. You can go all in on this, but I'm still not willing to go out and hunt in the field during winter. Not in this state."

Doggett gives her an embarrassed smile. "I'm sure you can be of a lot of help even if you never leave the Hoover building. I probably won't be doing much outside myself."

"When would they want to talk to us?" Scully asks.

"Um." Doggett looks even more uncomfortable. "Late this evening."

"How late?"

"Really late? Not until nine."

"Then I take it you'll be coming over to stay with the kids, then," Scully suggests. This has him squirming a little. "I'm not leaving a houseful of kids alone, even if most of them will be sleeping, and Alan can't stay that late."

"Uh, yeah. I'll be over then," Doggett promises unhappily.

"Great," Mulder looks over to when the producer is now chatting with one of the camera man, pointing at something he can't see. "Now who's going to tell Wayne we'll probably miss a few days this week?"

"Skinner already has," Doggett announces, surprising him. "He can't help, but he did remind Wayne that he owes him."

"I wonder why?" Scully asks, and Mulder understand she's asking why Wayne owes Skinner, not why he'd call in the favor.

"Mutual dirt, I'd imagine."

To Wayne's relief, they weren't wanted until the evening, so they were able to finish taping the episode at least.

* * *

It's snowing lightly when the middle school bus lets the three oldest Mulder kids off an eighth of a mile from their house. Page usually likes the brief walk home but Sammy and April are having an argument about baseball, and she's not at all interested so it comes as a relief when they get to the house. But when they walk in, Alan rushes over to them. Page still has her coat in her hand, but she's trying to be attentive anyway. Alan doesn't usually pay all that much attention to the kids he doesn't mind, but today he looks like he wants to talk to them.

"Hey," he says quietly. "Your parents are in bed, so please try to keep it down, okay?"

April's brow furrows. "Are they sick? Four kids were out today in my science class-"

The nanny cuts her off with a shake of his head.

Then Sammy's eyes widen. "Oh, are they, um..." his cheeks turn bright red, giving both of his sisters a good idea what he's thinking of.

"Sammmmy!" April wails, punching him twice in the shoulder.

"Geez, April, you know they -" he complains, rubbing his shoulder. He backs away when she balls her fist again.

Alan's beginning to turn a little pink himself, and he speaks up quickly. "They've been asked to help with an FBI case late tonight, so they're trying to get some sleep before they have to leave. Getting enough rest is important for your mom right now, so I'm sure you'll find something nice and quiet to do, right?" he prompts.

"Because of the baby," April says, scowling.

"Yeah, sure, we'll be quiet," Page agrees distractedly. "But they're helping on a case? Wow, it's been a long time since they did."

"They haven't since the ghost episode, right?" Sammy asks.

Alan just looks confused. "When you say 'episode,' do you mean an event, or their show?"

"Show. That other kind of episode sounds like something Grandma Teena would say."

"Oh."

"I think you're right, Sammy," Page adds.

April nods, but it's clear that she's thinking of something else. "Are you staying here tonight?"

"Nope, not me. My wife would kill me."

"Oh cool, I want to be in charge then," Sammy exclaims.

"Yeah right. Mom and Dad would leave me in charge sooner than you," April grumbles.

"Hey! They would not!" her older brother protests. "But it'll be Page, right? She's the oldest."

"I didn't sign up to babysit," she protests, holding up her hands.

"Like it'd be on the chore chart, Page," Sammy says. "We only sign up for things we can all do."

"I was being, like, figurative," Page says, happy to have remembered that vocab word.

If anything, Page thinks that Alan looks even more confused. "They said that the FBI owes them and someone from the bureau will be will be staying with you tonight in exchange for their cooperation in this case. I don't know, that sounds like your dad being funny, but-"

Page and Sammy look at each other. "I wonder if it'll be Uncle John or Monica."

It's hard for Page not to smirk - Alan was really, really confused about the fact that their parents taught them to call their friends aunt and uncle. So much so he once cornered her and asked if Samantha and Missy were really siblings of their parents, or more friends.

Alan drags a hand down his face; even though he's met the couple, it's clear he didn't think of them as being who Mulder meant. "Somehow, I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the fact that your parents are still friends with feds..."

All three kids give him a blank look as if to ask what's so strange about that. Sighing, he says, "Anyway, whoever it is will get here after dinner."

"I'm not cooking, either," Page complains.

"They asked me to order pizza."

Sammy almost opens his mouth to express his joy in this, but a sharp look from Alan wilts him. "So...going to find something quiet to do now."

"Thank you."

Page looks back after April follows Sammy out of the room. Alan has taken a position by the door, probably to capture the younger boys before they get into the house. She wishes him luck with that.

* * *

When Doggett gets home, he finds Reyes making dinner, and the girls in the living room watching a movie while Jon-Jon dozes in his swing. A glance at the screen reveals that the main character is a cucumber, and he gives his older girl a grateful smile. Hannah just shrugs, as if to say she doesn't really mind Rebecca's choice of movie.

As much as he'd like to just sit down, he picks up a vegetable peeler and reaches for the first of the potatoes stacked on the island. "What are we making?" he asks.

"Stew," she tells him, reaching for a carrot herself. "How it'd go with Dana and Mulder?"

"They're going to go do it."

"That's great."

"I'm glad. Muldah's a much better profiler than I am, and he'll be a lot more help to them than I would be. I don't have half his experience working with people who claim to be psychic."

"Don't you?" Reyes asks archly, making him grin.

"Friends and family don't count."

"Okay, sure." A knife makes the newly peeled carrot into an orange pile of chunks and she reaches for the next tuber. "Just Mulder, or…?"

"Dana too."

"That's a little surprising." He waits for her to mention Scully's pregnancy, but she just raises an eyebrow. "Considering that she was the one who pushed for them to leave."

"I know. Maybe she misses it."

Reyes snorts. "Like hell. Probably she's worried that he'll get sucked back in if she's not there to provide some balance."

"Well, she's not thrilled about doing any fieldwork, but yeah, you're probably right. Either way, I feel a little selfish being so pleased that she's willing to get involved too."

Putting the knife down, her look softens. "I really hope they find her. I only met her a couple of times, but you and Leyla both had such good things to say about agent Bannan…" she trails off, apparently thinking. "Did they ask Leyla-"

"No," he says quickly. "I asked them not to."

"Why?"

"She means well, but I don't think this sort of case would play on her strengths."

"Because you think she likes Bannan too much to be objective, or because you don't want to send her out into the field without either of us?"

"Does it have to be one or the other?" he asks, shrugging. "If you weren't going to be off for another couple of weeks, I'd be fine with you both pitching in, but I don't think she's objective enough to be off on her own. She'd believe anything a supposed psychic said as if it was gospel."

"Pun intended?" she asks, and he gives her a confused look for a moment before shaking his head.

"Well, you could-"

"I'm already doing my penance. I'm babysitting tonight," he says sourly.

"Who?" Reyes asks blankly.

"I asked Muldah and Dana to meet with Whitney and Drummy at nine, and they'll be out all night."

"Then I guess we'd better get these veggies into the stew quickly then," she suggests, kissing him on the cheek.

* * *

Dinner is ready soon enough for Doggett to eat and get to play with Jon-Jon for a little while before he has to go. He'd probably never admit it to Reyes, but he envies the time she's gotten to spend home with him. Of course, she's gotten to change a lot more diapers, gotten thrown up on a lot more often, and listened to a hell of a lot more crying than he has too.

He's reaching for a rattle when he's poked in the elbow. Looking up, he's not surprised to see one of the girls staring at him.

"Daddy, I drawed you a picture," Rebecca says, in an obvious ploy to get attention away from her baby brother.

He shifts Jon-Jon on his lap, then holds out a hand for it. His mouth is opened to say something about how pretty the picture is, but then he really looks at it. It seems to be some sort of animal, with triangular fangs and claws a third as long as its body. "Wow, Becca, this is really...wow."

"It's a cat," Hannah helpfully informs him as she walks over to them.

"It's a...cat," Doggett repeats, trying not to sound doubtful.

"A kitten!" Rebecca insists. "Shouldn't we have a cute one like this?"

A shiver rips through him, and he can't help but think that a cat like that would be sooner to get a bullet in the head than a new home. "Maybe with shorter claws," he blurts out.

Rebecca's face instantly takes on a hurt cast. "The whiskers?"

"What?" He stares down at the paper. He guesses that some of those lines could be whiskers. "Oh."

Hannah bats him with a phone, which he's failed to notice she's been holding until now. "We're supposed to trade," she tells him wryly before reaching down to scoop the baby up. "It's Gibson."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" he complains, picking the phone up. She smirks at him and walks off. Rebecca trails her, asking her something about cats. "Hey, what's up?" Doggett asks as soon as it's quiet enough for him to hear.

"Not much," Gibson replies. From the sounds in the background, he's probably in the common area of his dorm. "I just felt like calling home."

"Well, I'm glad you did. How are classes going?"

"Pretty good."

"Studying hard for those midterms?" Doggett asks, hoping this is the case. The boys had both found out their first year that college was harder than high school, but beyond a couple of Cs that year they did well.

"Of course!"

"Luke too?"

"I think so," Gibson says, but there's a note of doubt to his voice that his father easily picks up on.

"He seems worried or somethin'?"

"Yeah," Gibson readily agrees. "But he hasn't talked to me about it. I don't know, maybe he's finding concept art and creative illustration more difficult than I do."

"Maybe," Doggett says, scratching behind his ear. Gibson has always been better with free-hand drawing than Luke. Unfortunately, Becca's skills don't show more than an average amount of skill. On the other hand, his little girl still wants to be a pirate when she grows up, so maybe not getting into art school won't be that big a deal. "So...you and Katie doing anything special for Valentine's day?" he asks to change the subject.

He almost swears he can hear the boy shrug. "A not-too-expensive dinner and a movie."

"Sounds like Valentines on a college campus. And a college budget."

"Basically." After a second Gibson adds, "of course Luke's bummed out about not being able to do even that."

"Promise you won't rub it in?"

"Of course not."

"Uh huh."

"Hey, John, are you about ready to go?" Reyes asks, making him jump when he realizes she's there. How long, though, he wonders.

"Yeah," he tells her before returning his attention to the phone. "Hey, do you want to talk to Monica? I'm really glad we got to talk, but I'm about to leave."

"Where are you going?" Gibson asks curiously.

"Uh... I'm babysitting Dana and Muldah's kids. I owe them."

Gibson laughs, then says, "Next time we talk you've got to tell me all about that."

"Deal."

After he hands Reyes the phone, she settles into the chair with the baby, who doesn't seem to mind that he's been passed to a third person in just a few minutes, and begins to chat with Gibson, dangling a toy for Jon-Jon's amusement as she does so. Seeing that cozy scene makes Doggett even more reluctant to go out, but he's the one who is responsible for Mulder and Scully leaving, so it's really the least he can do.


	3. Back in the Hoover Building Again

It's dark and cold when Doggett pulls up in front of the Mulder home, but if he really expected everyone to be in bed he'll be sorely disappointed. It's only eight o'clock and only the three youngest kids have bed times that early. Snorting to himself he gets out of the car reminding that most of Mulder and Scully's "extra" kids are between Hannah and Rebecca in ages, so course they don't all go to bed as early as his little(er) girl.

Mulder and Scully walk out and meet him in the driveway. He's not surprised that he has her arm; he's been subtly overprotective most of the times he's seen them since they announced that they were expecting another baby. To Doggett it seems like a blend of pride and mild guilt, as if Mulder feels bad about being glad that their efforts to keep their family from expanding didn't pan out. This strikes him as odd given she seems more or less happy too.

His weak attempt to psychoanalyze them falls awake when Mulder speaks up. "You really think we can help?"

"I do," he says honestly. "Of all the agents I've ever met, you're the two I'd put the most faith into finding anyone. If I was ever missing myself..." he trails off, a blush heating his wind-slapped cheeks when he remembers that he's speaking to a man who'd been missing and declared dead, and a woman who'd endured through both.

"Even though we've been away from the FBI this long?" Scully asks.

"Yes," Doggett insists. "Even if you'd been gone twice as long."

"Aww, John, I'm touched," Mulder crows, making him roll his eyes.

"I left a list of bedtimes on the fridge. And they ate a while ago," Scully tells him.

"Great." When they start towards their car, he impulsively calls after them, "Be careful!"

Mulder waves, which he takes as agreement. Watching them go, he fervently hopes that the case he's talked them into will find them both safe at the end of it.

He's less than halfway up the walk when the door swings open again. A dark-haired little boy who looks a lot like Mulder in miniature grins at him." Hi, Uncle John," he says happily.

It only takes him a fraction of a second to identify which of the twin boys he's speaking to. ''Hey, David. How's it going?" He's known them so long he forgets that they're identical until someone complains that they're too hard to tell apart. Their younger sisters are even easier to tell apart because they have distinct taste in clothing that Mulder and Scully gently encourage.

"Pretty good. We're making Valentines cards for school," David explains.

This surprises Doggett a little because he knows that Mulder and Scully could easily afford to buy premade cards. But when he sees Jared and Christopher gleefully cutting up paper he realizes it's probably the kids' idea to hand make them.

''Hey," he asks the boys at the table, "where are April, Sammy, and Page?"

"The laundry room." Jared explains.

"Oh." This sort of surprises him and leaves him wondering if he should be making Hannah do hers. "Folding clothes or washing then?"

"Dunno," Christopher says, reaching for glue.

For a moment he wonders if he should leave the younger kids to go find out, but he decides that this is silly. He's not really there to supervise the oldest kids, who barring an unexpected crisis can look after themselves. He's there so the older ones aren't burdened by the responsibility of baby siting. It's always has seemed to him that Mulder and Scully consider that unfair. Doggett sees eye to eye with them on a lot of parenting views, but not that one. He's never felt guilty about expecting his older children to pitch in to care for the younger ones. Luke and Gibson rarely complained when Hannah was small, and she now does only a little more than when she was the babysitee.

"How many cards are you making?" he asks, looking at the mountain of completed cards in the center of the table. There are so many that the ones on top look ready to topple.

"Sixty," Jared says. "Twenty for each of our classes."

"Any idea how many you have to go?"

"We've done fifty-three," Christopher declares, adding another to the pile.

Doggett waits for a second to see if the stack will fall. It doesn't. "Then you're almost done." He glances at the list on the fridge. "And just in time for bed too."

"Oh, man!" they complain.

Behind them a door opens with a bang, making them all jump. Sammy wrestles a laundry

basket through the door, and then puts it on the Floor to help his sisters with two more. "Thanks," they say but all three of them glare at the younger boys.

It's only then that Doggett notices that the table has been moved, causing the difficulty getting through the door. "Sammy?" Doggett asks, catching the red haired boy's attention. "Do these guys help put away their own laundry?"

"Yup."

"Okay. Why don't you boys do that now?" Doggett firmly suggests.

"But we still have some cards to make!" David protests.

"Do you need to bring them to school tomorrow?"

"Nooo..."

Doggett makes a shooing motion with both hands and they reluctantly follow their siblings into the next room. By the time Doggett has dragged the table back where he thinks it belongs and has scooped all the cards and art supplies into the box that's been left on the counter, Christopher and the twins have their arms full of clothing. It seems as though the bigger kids had sorted things downstairs as well as folding then.

He's definitely going to hate to consider teaching Hannah how to do laundry sooner than her older brothers; he really doesn't want a repeat of Luke and Babson's own first foray into the task. The flooded basement had taken him away from doing reports and took hours to wet vac up.

Once laundry is put away and showers taken, it's time for the middle kids to go to bed. He's happy that there's no outright refusal and little grumbling about it. And after they go to their rooms he checks on William, Zoe and Brianna, and is relieved that all three are sleeping.

That just leaves him with three kids to actively worry about. "So..." He looks at Sammy and the two girls. "What are you going to do?" He predicts they'll say watch TV or play video games.

"Read," Sammy tells him." I'm reading The Sea of Monsters, and I want to see if they rescue Grover."

"The blue muppet?" Doggett asks blankly. He can't recall any story arcs on PBS that put the...whatever Grover is in danger.

"Of course not." Sammy looks indigent. "I don't read books about Sesame Street characters!'"

"Cleveland?"

"What?"

"A Satyr," Page explains.

"Oh." He thinks for a moment. "Have fun with that."

"Thanks."

Page follows him, saying that she has a paper that's due in two weeks. Doggett stars after her, deciding that she must take after her mother in regards to work ethic. He has always suspected Mulder would have grown old and gray before typing up case files if he'd been left to his own devices.

"Oh, what about you?" he asks April awkwardly when it's just the two of them in the living room.

Her response is to sit down, making it obvious she's in no hurry to leave. "Can I ask you about something?"

"Oh. sure."

"Do you think my parents are too old to have another baby?" she asks intently. "Or, are you as old as my dad? I mean, you have a little baby, so maybe you think they're not too old."

"Um..." he stammers. His cheeks flame up again.

* * *

Washington, D.C.  
9: 24 p.m.

After so many years away, it feels strange to Scully to be walking into the Hoover building. It's stranger still not to use an ID to let themselves through security, but instead need to wait for the agent who has been assigned to meet them. They don't wait long before a man in a suit briskly walks towards them and explains why they're there to security.

Looking at them he merely says "Agent Mosely Drummy" rather tersely. It's obvious he doesn't expect them to introduce themselves. Instead he impatiently waits for them to finish with security.

"Nice to meet you," Scully offers as soon as they're waved through.

The tall black man frowns, not the response she expected. "This way."

They follow him down a hallway on the ground floor, and she glances over her shoulder at Mulder wondering what he thinks of going anywhere in the building other than the basement. John, Monica, and Leyla are still housed in the office down there, but it's now a matter of choice given that they'd been offered a second floor office eight months earlier. Doggett had turned it down, citing tradition as his reason, and the offer wasn't made again.

Glancing at them, Drummy says "Wait here" firmly as he swipes his ID through a reader, like he expects them to bully past him. Even Mulder isn't that eager, so they just roll their eyes when his back is to them.

"Nice guy," Mulder mutters seconds after Drummy disappears into another room.

She feels like she should tell him to be nice, but she doesn't. For someone getting help from them, he's barely civil so far. It's possible that he's a nice guy once you get to know him, but she doesn't think they'll spend enough time with him to discover that.

When he reappears a moment later he says "Come in" and ushers them into a conference room. The room is full of agents and there's so much conversation going on it sounds more like the waves of an ocean than words. Drummy taps a tall brunette woman on the shoulder, who turns away from the other agent she's speaking to. "Excuse me," he says gruffly. "They're here."

She gives him a smile and Scully is somewhat gratified when he doesn't smile at her, either. "Thanks for meeting them." Turning to Mulder and Scully, she says, "I'm Special Agent in Charge Whitney. Dakota Whitney."

"Dana Scully," she replies, shaking the woman's hand.

Mulder hangs back, studying the agent until she says, "And Fox Mulder, I believe. I know this is probably a little awkward to be here after so long but welcome back. My team and I appreciate your trust."

"Trust being what it is, what if I can't help you? Or your agent turns up dead?" he asks bluntly.

The wattage on her smile dims. "That would be unfortunate. But I know your work on X-Files cases and believe you may be the best chance Monica Bannan has now." Whitney hands a folder to Mulder, and he holds it open so Scully can see the contents too.

"How long has she been missing?" Scully asks, looking up from the photos.

Whitney looks grim. "Almost three days."

"Three days?" Scully gives the agent in charge a slightly alarmed look. "I know you know this, but after 72 hours there's a slim chance that she's still alive."

"We have some reason to believe she is. But so far we've got no evidence to the contrary and the facts give us hope. Soon after she was missing, we find this. A severed arm." Whitney holds out photographs, showing a bloody and severed limb. The hand has large blunt fingers.

Looking up from the photos, Mulder asks "Where?"

"About ten miles from her home."

"I don't understand, " Scully tells Whitney, looking very confused. "How is this related to the kidnapping? This is a man's arm."

"Is it a match for evidence found at or near the crime scene? Blood or tissue?" Mulder guesses.

"Blood. Found in her garage and on the tool that matches the wound," Whitney explains. At least now they know that there's a connection, that the FBI thinks that it belongs to someone who took their agent.

Mulder raises an eyebrow. "I take it you were led to it."

"Like a needle in a haystack," Whitney replies.

Mulder exchanges a look with his wife. "By someone claiming psychic powers."

Whitney nods. "Joseph Fitzpatrick Crissman."

"And you think he's full of shit."

Drummy looks faintly amused. "What makes you say that?"

Tapping his own temple, Mulder says "Psychic."

Drummy doesn't protest that he believes in the man they've yet to meet. "Father Joe cold-called six hours after Monica Bannan was reported missing, claiming a vision of her, a psychic connection."

"And he tells you she's alive."

"That's right."

Mulder looks skeptical himself. "Have you found any other connection?"

"To Monica Bannan?" Drummy asks.

Whitney shakes her head. "No. That's why I hoped you be willing to help. I need to know we're not wasting time."

Scully gives her a penetrating look. "You've ruled him out as a suspect, of course."

"Of course," Whitney says sharply. "We have no reason to believe that any of his knowledge in this case comes from being a doer himself."

Mulder watches the other people in the room, the ones not involved in their conversation. "He's a religious man, clearly educated man. He took right action, said nothing to cast doubt upon himself, has no material connection to the crime. You are wasting time, only it's mine and your agents'."

Whitney sighs. "There's a question of credibility."

"If you have no reason to doubt the man, why doubt the man's visions?" Mulder asks.

Drummy scoffs. "He didn't lead us to Monica Bannan. He gave us a guy's bloody arm in the snow."

"That's more than you had," Mulder notes. "This is not an exact science. If it were me, I'd be on the guy 24/7, I'd be in bed with him kissing his holy ass."

Drummy and Whitney turn away, murmuring to each other in low voices. Scully is pretty sure she hears "we have to tell them" before they turn back to them. Whitney looks like she's pained to have to say what she says next. "Father Joe's a convicted pedophile."

"Maybe I'd stay out of bed with him." Mulder swallows hard. "And I doubt we'll be inviting him home for Sunday dinner."

"We won't be inviting him anywhere near our children," Scully snaps.

Mulder holds up his hands. "A joke. Of course we wouldn't let him near the kids."

For a moment she contemplates leaving, but they took her car and she knows Mulder wouldn't come with her. Storming off in a snit isn't worth the price of a cab ride for one of them.

Whitney looks worried. "I'm not going to try to downplay his crimes. But I need to know if this is a deal-breaker for you." As she speaks, she's looking at Scully, not her husband.

A bitter taste fills Scully's mouth as she says, "I don't want to work with this man. But even more I don't want to look Bannan's family in the eye and tell them that my personal prejudices kept me from helping find their daughter alive."

"Okay," Whitney says, her posture suddenly a lot less tense.

"In that case, it's time for a fieldtrip," Drummy announces, a business-like tone to his voice provides an interesting contrast to his more jovial phrasing. He pulls his keys out of his pocket, making it clear that he intends to drive.

"Father Joe's up for visitors this time of night?" Mulder asks, surprised.

Whitney nods. "He said he'd help us day or night. Well, this is night."


	4. The Middle of the Night

Richmond, Virginia  
1:01 a.m.

Mulder begins to hum Elvis's "In the Ghetto" until Scully frowns at him, but he just shrugs until she lightens up; he's actually impressed that she's paid enough attention to his Elvis CDs over the years to have picked up on the tune. And it's hard not to make the comparison to a ghetto because the small collection of buildings isn't the type of place it seems like anyone would live in on purpose. The buildings are worn and utilitarian, looking more like something you'd see during one of the great wars than a housing complex in Richmond.

"What is this?" Scully asks for them both as they take off their seatbelts.

"Dorms for habitual sex offenders," Whitney says reluctantly.

"Dorms?" From her tone it's clear that this is the first time she's heard of such an arrangement, and it's the first he has either.

"I hope Luke and Gibson's is nicer than this," he whispers, but Scully isn't paying attention to him. Instead her eyes are fastened on Whitney's face.

"They manage the complex and police themselves. Father Joe lives here voluntarily with his roommate."

"Just avoid the activities room," Mulder can't but help to quip. Predictably, both women glare at him, but he grins unrepentantly.

Despite the hour, the father and his roommate are both awake. It makes Mulder wonder if they work third shift, or if they work at all. It can't be easy to get a job if you're a registered sex offender. Food is frying on a stove when their knock is answered, and Mulder quickly predicts that this man is the roommate rather than the defrocked priest. He simply doesn't look like he's ever spent any time preaching to a flock.

Him calling "Joe?" uncertainly, spatula still in hand like he intends to use it as a weapon if his roommate doesn't know their visitors, confirms his suspicion.

He relaxes when a voice in another room calls back, "Tell them to come in."

Father Joe might welcome their presence but his roommate clearly doesn't, at least judging by his show of reluctant when he finally allows them in. _At least we didn't wake them_, Mulder thinks as he hears a TV in another part of the apartment.

Beside him, Scully stiffens, and Mulder almost asks her what's wrong, but then he follows her gaze. An older man with a wild tangle of gray hair is kneeling on the floor, clearly praying.

He bites his tongue to keep himself from asking her what's wrong because he's fairly certain that she'll retort that it's wrong for a criminal like him to seek peace in the Lord's sanctity. There's been enough discussion between the two of them when sensationalist stories hit the news for him to be sure that she considers the man beyond all redemption.

Watching her stare holes in the old man's back, he begins to wonder if she'll be able to maintain her objectivity well enough to work with Father Joe. Throughout their years at the bureau this had rarely been her problem, but the fact that children are involved in his list of misdeeds is beginning to wonder if asking her to be involved too was a mistake. It's one thing to make cracks outside of the former priest's hearing, but treating him like they think he's scum would be quite another given how useful Whitney hopes he can be with their agent's disappearance.

He has no idea if Drummy feels the same way about child-molesting priests as Scully does, but it's clear the agent has no problem interrupting his prayers. "Father Joe?" he asks loudly, making the old man turn towards them.

The former priest wears a ratty robe and Mulder is somehow reminded of a dog-eared Hugh Hefner, but he immediately shoves the thought away when the next whispers that old Father Joe probably wouldn't get much out of associating with playboy bunnies.

Father Joe glances at the room, and a faint pink blush makes his cheeks rosy. "Excuse the mess. I haven't been sleeping."

Insomnia, perhaps, rather than habitual late nights, Mulder decides. He'd suffered it in his own life too, but fathering so many babies had cured him of the self-indulgence, so he'd learned to sleep whenever he could.

Drummy points at him. "Father Joe, this is Fox Mulder."

"Okay..." Father Joe looks slightly wary. Apparently Drummy and Whitney hadn't thought to call ahead.

"He'd like to ask some questions."

Scully interrupts. "Actually, I'd like to ask something. What was it you were praying for in there, sir?"

Father Joe returns her look, unabashed by her tone. "For the salvation of my immortal soul," he says, and Mulder identifies his accent as a not-very-Sean-Connery-like Scottish one.

"And you think God hears your prayers?" she asks.

"Do you think he hears _yours_?" Father Joe returns.

Scully narrows her eyes.

_Oh crap_, Mulder thinks. _Don't say it, Scully, don't say it-_

She says it. "I didn't bugger thirty-seven altar boys." Clearly his crimes are what she used her phone to look up on the drive over.

"Oh." Father Joe deflates, and sits on his bed.

"That's a colorful way of putting it," Mulder murmurs.

Now it's him she looks upset with. "I have another word, if you like."

Holding his hands up in surrender, he says, "I'm sure you do."

Father Joe gives her an appealing look, which does nothing to soften her demeanor. "I have to believe he does hear me, or why would he send these visions?"

"Maybe it's not God doing the sending," she says flatly.

Mulder jumps in, hoping to salvage the conversation. "You call them visions," he pounces, dragging the conversation into safer waters. "You see them?"

Father Joe nods. "They're what you might call my mind's eye."

Mulder finds himself growing interested in spite of himself. "What do you see?"

Before he replies, Father Joe picks up a cigarette and lights it. Mulder has the urge to warn him that those things can be killers, but he can easily imagine the former priest retorting that he's not so eager to extend his life so he holds his tongue. "I see the poor girl being assaulted." He takes a drag off the cigarette, eyes far away. Apparently it's not a no smoking apartment. He guesses that tolerating smoking indoors is a small thing next to housing men like that anyway. "See her putting up a fight. I hear dogs barking."

Whitney's expression makes it clear that this is not new to her or Drummy. "Where?"

Father Joe shrugs helplessly. "Can't tell."

Mulder frowns a little. "But you see her alive."

It's not the answer he hopes for. "No, but I feel that she is."

Mulder feels like he's floundering. "Can you show us how you do it?"

The man looks game enough, and puts his cigarette out before closing his eyes. If he's not really concentrating on looking for Bannan with his mind's eye, he's at least making a good show of it. After a few seconds he frowns in consternation and opens his watery blue eyes. "I don't know that I can do this right now. Maybe it'd be better if she wasn't

here." His extended finger indicates Scully to no one's surprise, least of all Mulder's.

Scully doesn't take kindly to this. "Maybe what you see is a way to try and make people forget what it is that you really are."

Mulder stares after her, torn between wanting to run out after her and wanting to make sure that Father Joe won't write them off. He's not convinced that this man has any answers, but what if he does? She'll forgive me, he tells himself, but it feels like a possible lie. "I'm sorry about that."

Father Joe glances up at him, not looking too upset. Maybe more resigned. "I'm used to it. Mothers often take a special dislike of me."

"Oh." He doesn't say that it's a small wonder, but it might be written on his face so he looks away.

"This isn't your first child, is it?" Father Joe asks, and Mulder is somewhat surprised that he looked at Scully long enough to notice that she's pregnant. Many people don't, given she's only been showing at all for six or seven weeks. They'd never said they were married, but if the man's sharp-eyed enough to notice her belly, he's also bound to have noticed their matching rings.

"No. It's not."

To his surprise, Drummy laughs. "This is what, number ten? A small Catholic family." This immediately has Mulder's back up because he hadn't had any intent to tell Father Joe about their children. Nothing would spark Scully's not terribly unjustified paranoia faster than the man asking solicitous questions about the kids, especially the boys.

Father Joe startles. "You're Catholic?" he asks, and Mulder finds himself calming down when Joe doesn't let the topic linger over his children. Maybe he's already learned it's a bad idea.

"No. She is, though."

"Well, that says a lot." Father Joe sighs. "Catholic mothers hate me most of all."

Mulder notices that Whitney is giving Drummy an odd look, but he won't know what she's thinking until later because at that moment she turns to him instead. "Is this going to be a problem?"

He understands what "this" is without asking for clarification. "Honestly, I don't know. I guess I should go find out."

"Thanks," Whitney says, but she looks doubtful.

Fortunately, Mulder thinks he knows Scully a lot better than that.

* * *

Outside, Scully stews, knowing that it's only a matter of time before Mulder comes out and tries to get her to act reasonably. The part that bothers her the most is that she knows that he'll be right. As horrible a person she feels Father Joe to be, they'll only be working with him for a short time, and some good might come out of swallowing down the bad feelings and just trying to cope with associating with him the best that she can.

Eventually the door behind her opens, and she looks back, expecting Mulder. It's not him, though, it's Father Joe's roommate, putting out the trash. Sighing, she looks through the folder that Whitney gave her, studying the lurid photos of the severed arm and test results.

She's so engrossed in the folder's contents that she jumps a foot when a hand lands on her shoulder. Before she can completely freak out, Mulder hugs her to him. "I'm sorry to scare you."

"Jesus, Mulder," she complains.

Rather than remain apologetic, he gives her a long look. "So much for kissing his holy ass, huh?"

"I'm sorry. I've had too long away from this business. Or not long enough," she tells him, feeling like it's true that she's had too much time away from dealing with psychopaths to be good at it anymore. The closest they've come to lately has been debating Reed and he's probably just a narcissist.

Mulder shakes his head. "It's probably a good thing that you challenged him. Drummy's skeptical, but I'm betting Whitney's been doing all the ass kissing he could hope for. Maybe we want him to be off balance, or else he's just going to keep claiming psychic impotence."

"Psychic impotence?" she repeats, lips twitching as she fights off the urge to smile.

Mulder makes an unmistakable hand gesture. "You heard him in there, he couldn't get his mojo up."

"Mul_der_." His grin is unrepentant, which makes her shake her head. "Do you think he really can connect to the victim, or whatever it is that he's claiming to be able to do?"

"I don't know," Mulder admits, which surprises her a little. "I'm willing to reserve judgment. For now. But I take it you're not."

"I'm not," she agrees. "I think he's a creep, and a liar. He knows who did this and they're supplying him with information. And look where he lives. And this arm they found - it wasn't severed in any fight, it was cut cleanly, chopped right off. And tell me how he's been able to lead them straight to it and not even muster a guess as to where the victim is? And two things you're going to find in the next 24 hours - a dead agent and that this guy, Father Joe, is a big fat fraud."

"You could be right, Scully. You could be right. But what if you're wrong?"

This has her staring at him. "What if we cut him loose and it turns out he really knows something?" Mulder asks. Before she can respond, he goes on. "You saw yourself that he desperately wants to be forgiven for his sins. What if one of those sins is an involvement in this case that the FBI hasn't picked up on?"

"You think he's got a guilty conscience?" Scully asks, absurdly picturing Sammy when he was small and ashamed of something he'd done. Father Joe looks nothing like any of her children, yet the mental image is hard to banish. Something on the old man's face must've seemed familiar she decides.

"I'm not a psychic myself, Scully, but my gut insists that one way or the other, he's going to lead us to some answers."

Behind them the door opens again, and Drummy comes out, followed by Father Joe. The former priest has now seen fit to put on some pants, and is in the middle of doing up his coat. Whitney closes the door behind them, and Scully thinks that the Father's roommate looks relieved to see them go.

Casting Mulder a look, she asks, "What's going on?"

"We're going to take him for a ride, see just how psychic this Father Joe really is."

"Yeah, well, it's been fun," she says, starting to walk away from him.

Mulder stops her with a gentle hand on her arm that makes her look up at him. "Scully. Nobody's going to make you sit next to him."

She pushes his hand away. "Thanks, but I've already been taken for a ride. Anyway, he doesn't want me there."

She walks down the steps and he hurries after her. "**I** want you here."

Scully stops and frowns at him. Putting her hands on her hips, unaware that it makes her belly all the more obvious, she says, "This isn't my life anymore, Mulder. I'm done chasing monsters in the dark. I think you've done all they've asked of you here too. You know, no one says you have to stay here."

"I know," he says so softly she barely can hear him over the wind. "These people need my help. I could really use yours." His eyes are pleading as he holds another case file out to her. Still frowning, she takes it from him and follows him to the car. He may have a point. Even if Father Joe is a bad guy rather than an oracle, there might be something to gain from playing as nicely as possible with him. She's just not sure how nicely that can be, not when she finds his misdeeds so repulsive. It makes her glad when Mulder clambers into the middle of the back seat, putting a few more feet between her and Joe.

Father Joe looks at her, and she doesn't have to be a mind-reader herself to realize he thought she'd have left in a snit. Like she wanted to. Surprising him gives her a small, mean glow of satisfaction.

Once they also climb into the SUV, Whitney pounces on her partner, poking him in the shoulder before letting him put the keys into the ignition. "When I suggested bringing them in, you sneered like you don't watch the show, but I know you do. How else would you know how many kids they have?"

Scully shoots her husband a look, but he merely shrugs.

"Their files?" Drummy suggests, sounding oddly flustered.

"Nice try. The kids are hardly mentioned in any of the files-" Mulder wonders in alarm which cases they might be mentioned in, but then considers that they took three of the kids with them undercover once, and thinks of a couple more write-ups they were named over the years, such as the Great Mutato's. "-and even if you counted up Dana's maternity leave for god knows what reason, you wouldn't know the exact number of kids they have considering there are two sets of twins and the younger set wasn't born until after they left and the show started."

Drummy's shoulders sag in defeat. "Yeah. All right. I watch the damn show."

"I knew it!" Whitney crows. Looking at the couple through the rearview mirror, she smiles. "I love your show, by the way. Jen and I make popcorn every week and cuddle up to watch it together. She even tapes it for us to watch later if I'm not home because of a case."

"That's sweet," Scully remarks sincerely before covering her mouth to yawn. "It sounds like something Mulder would've done when we were younger if there was a show we followed like that."

Mulder smiles to himself, careful not to look Scully's way. She might be nominally Catholic, but it doesn't mean that she doesn't keep an open mind about various topics churches tend not to.

"At least you mostly got to work cases together," Whitney says wistfully. "Jen's a vet, and we don't need someone to look at animals too often."

"Yeah, well, we don't have my girlfriend tag along either," Drummy says a bit sourly. "And there are really nights we could use a bartender."

"Ain't that the truth," Whitney says with a sigh. Glancing at Scully, she asks, "So...I know you two went undercover as a couple at least once. Any tips about scoring a case like that, where you might get to bring your significant other along?"

"It's not like we volunteered for it," Scully demurs. "It just landed on our desks."

Whitney looks a little disappointed. "Oh well."

Drummy looks mildly alarmed. "It might sound like fun, but if anything happened to Chandra or Jen, we'd never forgive ourselves."

This seems to shut Whitney's playful mood down cold. "Yeah..."

Once they get to the main highway, conversation rolls over and dies. Mulder looks like he doesn't really mind, as long as she's the only one to fall asleep and lean against him, not Father Joe too. That's the price you pay when you volunteer to sit in the middle, though.

* * *

Washington, DC

It's hard to believe that a house with nine kids in it can be so quiet, but it's nearly silent when his phone ringing breaks the spell. Startled, he drops the book he's been thumbing through, and Daisy comes to see what's going on.

"Doggett." He's not surprised that it's Mulder. He listens to him explain that they're going on a long drive, then replies, "Sure. No problem. As long as you need.-Bye."

The puppy seems antsy, when he hangs up and after a few moments he realizes that she is looking from him to the front door. "Oh," he tells her, getting up and grabbing her leash. She waits patiently as he snaps the leash on her collar, but as soon as he opens the door Daisy leaps forward. "Hey, hold on," he complains. Wind rips at his unzipped coat and it ruffles Daisy's fur, but she's so intent on sniffing the ground for the perfect spot that she doesn't notice. He wishes that he didn't. "I guess waking up needing to pee isn't just a human thing, huh?" he comments.

He has to fight the door to keep it from slamming when they go back in, and he sighs with relief when he's able to shut it quietly. His relief is short-lived, though, because he's just barely able to hang up the leash when he hears something that makes him look up the staircase. At first she has trouble making sense of what he's seeing, which is just a white blur. His first impression is that it might be one of the ghosts Luke and Gibson both claimed to have seen, but he hears a hand turn the knob to a door, and both boys claim that the ghost simply appear without the need to bother with doors or windows.

After a second his brain catches up, and he rushes up the stairs. When he reaches the top, Brianna is huddled against her parents' again closed door, head in arms. He hears her moan "mommy" in a heartbroken way just as he gets to her.

Observing her behavior he's initially worried that she's acting like a child younger than Rebecca, but it soon dawns on him that she's not entirely awake. Crouching down next to her, he gently raises her chin. "Hi sweetie, what's wrong?"

"Mommy and Daddy are gone," she tells him, sounding confused. "They're gone!"

"I know," he says, picking her up. She doesn't resist. "That's why I'm here," he explains. Getting there after the little ones went to bed now seems to have been a really bad idea. No wonder she's disoriented, he thinks guiltily.

"Uncle John?" she asks, a little more awake.

"Yeah?"

"Where are my mom and dad?"

"They're doing me a big favor."

"What kind of favor?" she asks as he carries her down the hallway.

"Oh. A woman I know is missing. So your folks are helping to look for her."

"She's lost?"

"Well, she might have been taken by a bad guy," he admits, deciding with the stories she's grown up hearing about their past she's more likely to worry that her parents could get lost too, more than bad guys could kidnap them. "And your parents are good at helping with stuff like that."

"That usta be their job. 'fore we were born."

"Sure was."

"Sammy and Page remember," she says with a yawn. "But I don't."

_You wouldn't_, he thinks. It seems a bit strange to him to think that this girl and her twin hadn't even been born yet when Mulder and Scully last worked with him regularly. It's really been almost six years since they left the X-Files in his hands?

By now they've reached the door to the bedroom she and Zoe share. He puts her down and asks, "Before you go back to bed do you need to use the bathroom?" He thinks of Daisy, who has gone back to her dog bed in the kitchen. "Or get a drink of water?"

"No. But tuck me in?"

"Sure."

To his relief, the girls' night light gives enough illumination for him to see her bed. Fortunately, their room is neater than his own young daughter's. Holding a finger to his lips, he points at a sleeping Zoe with the other hand.

Nodding, she gets in to bed very quietly. He pulls the covers over her and reminds himself not to kiss her on the forehead like he would Rebecca and whispers "goodnight "instead. She smiles sleepily and rolls on to her side, curling up.

Shutting the door behind him, he backs into the hallway. It'll be hours yet before Mulder and Scully gets home. He hopes this is his last excitement for the night, and that they'll come home with good news about a lost woman now found.

He picks the novel up from where he dropped it on the floor and settles back in a recliner. The story's actually pretty good, as long as you don't roll your eyes too hard over the spy intrigue, and he's so engrossed in it that he's a little confused when he hears a rusty noise and looks down.

The fact that his lap is now warmer should have been the first clue, but he honestly doesn't remember Teliko and Piper climbing up onto his lap. They take up most of it. And when he looks at them, they give him slow blinks as if to ask if he's going to make an issue of their presence.

Shrugging, he decides the cats make night watch a little less lonely, and goes back to his book.

* * *

_a/n: Well? What do you think?_

_Slightly OT: There are lots of new baby and kidfic challenges at **The Nursery Files** waiting for writers to adopt them. Google "The Nursery Files Challenges" and it'll be the first or second hit. All XF fic writers are welcome to participate :)_


	5. A Cry of Surprise

Somerset, Western Virginia  
5:02 a.m.

After what seems like an eternity, the SUV finally reaches a bumpy track that might be called a road if one was feeling particularly generous. If Scully was awake instead of dozing against his shoulder, Mulder would probably lean over and make a paranoid joke about being driven out to the middle of nowhere to be murdered. Just as well, he decides, looking at her sleeping face. The joke would likely fall flat, annoying her, considering her reluctance to stay involved rather than amusing her as he'd hope it would.

And, he thinks as they slalom over yet another sizeable bump, no one at the bureau has any reason to want him dead at the moment. Everyone who'd eventually gone on to work with the super soldiers or their would-be invaders had been safely locked up before they could congregate at Mount Weather to scheme against mankind, and the jailed conspirators haven't proven to be able to reach beyond the bars of their cells. If he and Krycek hadn't eviscerated the remnants of the consortium, he can't imagine being able to trust Whitney and Drummy enough to work with them.

Father Joe has been sleeping too, fortunately leaning against the door rather than on Mulder, but his head snaps up when they hit a particularly vicious pothole. Yawning, he glances out the window before asking, "Are we getting warm?"

Whitney leans over the passenger seat, replying coolly, "You tell us."

Scully begins to wake up, staring at Father Joe when he shrugs. "I don't have a clue where we are."

Before she can say something snarky, which he senses she's about to, Mulder squeezes her hand. She scowls at him, but lets him speak instead. "That's all right. Everyone works differently."

Father Joe snorts. "Who are you now, the good cop?"

"Nah. I'm not a cop at all now. I'm a TV personality."

"She said that." Father Joe hooks his thumb in Whitney's direction. "But I have to tell you, I've never heard of your show."

It's somewhat refreshing that he hasn't, at least in Mulder's opinion. There's only so much gushing or complaints about the show that he can take. He slips Monica Bannan's FBI ID card out of his pocket and holds it out. "What about her? Do you know her somehow that would explain why you have visions about her?"

Irritated, Father Joe pushes the card away. "I don't know this girl, your agent. I can't explain the connection."

"There's always something." Mulder puts the card away, which seems to make the other man slightly less tense. "However small."

The scowl this earns him is a lot like Scully's a couple of minutes earlier. "And who made you the expert?" he demands to know, his unhappiness making his accent more pronounced.

"The FBI," Scully says flatly. Father Joey gives her an interested look, but it doesn't induce her to elaborate.

Frowning, Mulder decides that he has to share more about their past than he cares to if he wants to get anywhere with the man. For someone who contacted the police, he can be surprisingly uncooperative. "Dana and I are former agents. We investigated a series of cases involving unexplained phenomena for the FBI."

It surprises Mulder that this revelation doesn't appear to have surprised Father Joe. "So you believe in these sort of things?" he asks, and it's clear that he doesn't find that a laudable quality.

It makes Mulder wonder if he only believes in his own visions but is somehow able to dismiss the rest of the unexplained. _Holy cognitive dissonance_, he thinks to himself. "Let's just say that I want to believe."

"And his sister was abducted by an E.T. when they were kids," Drummy rumbles from the front seat. There's a hint of bitter amusement to his tone, reminding Mulder of the days before Scully joined him on the FBI, and people at the bureau openly mocked his search for his sister as often as they praised his profiling skills.

"Is that true?"

"It was a long time ago," Mulder says evenly. He turns to the window, looking out at an endless plane of snow, wondering if they're ever going to reach their destination, or drive endlessly until they all grow old and die.

"She's okay now, though isn't she, your sister?" Father Joe asks.

"Yes, Samantha's fine. She and her husband are quite happy."

In the front seat both Drummy and Whitney look shocked. This pleases Mulder on some level, and makes him glad that there was no media-involvement in his reunion with his sister. He's deeply glad that they found each other again after decades, but it's a private joy, and not something he'd want splashed across a page even under the well-meaning guise of a human interest story.

All of the sudden Father Joe leans forward, and Mulder wonders if he's okay until he begins to talk excitedly. "Stop!" Drummy hits the brakes a lot harder than Mulder appreciates, and he and Scully both slide forward, but he automatically puts an arm out to keep her from being attacked by the seatbelt as they pitched forward.

"This is where she was taken. This is where your agent was attacked," Father Joe explains, oblivious to how close all of them came to being dumped out of their seats.

"I want to see the crime scene," Mulder announces and snaps off his seatbelt. Scully follows his lead.

"Hold on," Drummy insists, giving them a long look until they put their belts back on. He then advances slightly, pulling into a driveway Mulder's hardly noticed. The vehicle following behind them pulls in too, and everyone is allowed to get out.

Father Joe walks toward the garage as eagerly as a beagle scenting a rabbit, but he stops abruptly, looking confused. That initial confusion fades quickly into irritation. Looking at Whitney and Drummy he complains, "No, this isn't right. You've brought me to the wrong house." Then he begins to walk back to the driveway, leaving the rest of them there.

"Pulled that right out of his ass," Mulder says.

Drummy follows the old man who has now reached the road. The former priest approaches the house across the street, and Mulder finally notices that there is crime scene tape near that house's garage. Without asking, Joe enters the garage. Drummy looks back at them, and Whitney gestures to indicate that he should keep him in his sights.

Whitney looks skeptical, eyes still on the garage across the street. Occasionally movement can be seen through the out-building's small windows. When she notices that Mulder and Scully are both looking at her, she says, "There were news crews out here covering the scene, pictures of the neighborhood. He could have recognized it all from TV."

She begins to walk towards the street, and they follow her. "Yeah, but why?" Mulder asks.

"Why?" Whitney clearly doesn't get his point.

"Why do it?" he asks. "Why would he go to such great lengths to create an elaborate fiction?"

"Maybe he's a sociopath," Scully remarks, shrugging unapologetically when Mulder and Whitney stare at her. "Maybe he just enjoys winding people up."

"I don't think we need to automatically jump to the 'he's evil' explanation," Mulder protests. Her look tells him that she considers Joe evil in general, so it's not a jump for her.

"What other reason makes sense? He's either the real deal, purposely wasting our time and resources, or motivated by what?" Scully demands to know.

"Expiation. Forgiveness of his sins. He's written dozens of letters to the Vatican, pleading re-engagement with the church."

"A rather odd way to impress the Holy See," Mulder remarks.

"That's a futile effort. He's never going to gain forgiveness for what he did to those boys. You don't accidentally molest children who trust you to have their best interest at heart," Scully says hotly.

Whitney shrugs. "Whether his requests get him anywhere isn't the issue here. If he's really seeing where Monica is."

"You think it's possible?" Scully asks her.

"I don't know," Whitney admits. "But the voice of God speaking through a man - I think that's been a winner a few times."

"You think God would know better than to pick such a broken vessel," Scully snaps.

"Or maybe God is using someone who deserves the disruption to their life," Whitney suggests. "Prophets generally didn't have long lifespans once they took on their tasks."

Scully clearly doesn't like this argument, but she doesn't have a remark to repute it on the ready. By the time they get to the other side of the road, Father Joe and Drummy have left the shed and are walking towards the woods.

She watches them for a moment before spying something interesting in the snow. "You catch up with them," she says. "I'm going to look at something over there."

"Sure."

* * *

As soon as she's out of earshot, Whitney says, "Does she often go off on her own like that?"

"Only when she's pissed off," Mulder says with a wry grin. "Luckily for me, that's not too often."

"I bet she takes walks on the set between takes to keep from punching Reed," Whitney says, smiling back.

"We all take walks to keep from punching Reed." He watches Drummy, who is shadowing Father Joe like he's a teenager a clerk thinks is going to shoplift from the drug store. "So you think he's guilty too, huh?"

Whitney purses her lips. "With the details he claims to know, we have to consider him a suspect."

"But you found no connection to the crime," Mulder points out.

Giving him a long look, she asks, "And you never had a suspect who had no obvious connection to a crime turn out to be guilty?"

An image of Victor Tooms swatting at him before he was crushed by the workings of an escalator swims to the forefront of Mulder's brain. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't."

"Everyone else on my team is still looking for Monica via conventional means, and they think they're going to find her."

He blinks, reminding himself that she's not talking about their Monica. It feels strange to him, so no wonder Doggett is hesitant to get too deeply enmeshed in the case. "But you don't, or you wouldn't be here."

"Yeah, I'm not the most popular girl at the FBI right now for calling in TV stars for help."

"I wouldn't say we're stars," Mulder automatically demurs, but a look from Whitney makes him sigh. "I was never exactly Miss Popularity at the FBI myself."

"Maybe not, but I did hear jokes about Mr. January when I first started." When he gives her a confused look, she laughs. "You know, like a model for a calendar? That was back before I brought Jen as a date to a function. I guess they thought all women could appreciate how attractive you are. God knows they also said a few catty things about your wife that made it clear they thought she cheated somehow in the contest to get your attention."

"I. What? Wow."

"Sorry to fluster you," Whitney says, clearly not sorry at all. "But I wouldn't want you to think that you were forgotten after you left."

"Thanks?"

"And it's because you haven't been forgotten that I wanted your help. You've worked with psychics before. Luther Lee Boggs, Clyde Bruckman, Gerald Schnauz. I went through those cases and I was extremely impressed."

"Thank you. But I'm only half the team."

"Oh, of course, but-"

Their conversation cuts off when there's a cry of surprise behind them.

* * *

Meanwhile

It's been so cold that Scully hasn't really been aware of the depth of the snowpack below her feet because it offers a hard enough surface for all of them to walk over the top of it. Until suddenly it doesn't. Scully exclaims in alarm as the crust beneath her boots suddenly gives way, making her lose her balance. Before she knows it, she's in snow up to her knees with her hands thrown out to break her fall.

Since she had forged ahead, Mulder, behind her, sees her fall and yells "Scully!" before running to her. He's there in an instant, hazel eyes filled with concern as she tries to free her feet from snow that's nearly up to her knees. Sighing, she takes his hand when he tires of watching her struggle.

"Thanks," she says, shaking the snow off her gloves as he pulls her onto snow she hopes will hold her weight a little better. From the knee down her pants are wet, and the sharp wind is already making her feel uncomfortable.

"Are you okay?" Mulder asks breathlessly, and she knows it's not because the wind has taken his breath away. "We should get the EMT to check you out-"

She shakes her head, ignoring his instant look of dismay. "I'm fine."

"But-"

"Look at me, Mulder," she says, making a sweeping gesture from neck to thigh. "I'm fine, the baby's fine. I didn't even get any snow on my belly, let alone hurt myself there, see?"

He actually does examine her coat, and she turns her head to hide a smile. Once upon a time, before Sammy was born, she had gotten roughed up enough to warrant a visit to the ER. But this time she's just fallen though a little snow, not been tossed around like a rag doll. "But what about the rest of you?" he asks. "I'm worried about you, too."

"I'm damp, not injured." She tries not to feel indigent because she knows he means well.

"If you're sure you're all right," he says, looking only mildly doubtful now.

"Really, I'm fine," she says, brushing snow off her pants as she speaks. "And I don't believe in signs and portends, but I do believe in pushing your luck." He frowns, maybe predicting what she'll say next. "If you want to continue to do fieldwork on this case I'm not going to try to talk you out of it, but I'm done out here. I'll offer what assistance I can from the safety of the inside of a snow-free building."

"Right," Mulder says, not arguing like she anticipates. "Good idea."

She can tell that he's not happy to be abandoned in the field, but she's grateful he's not guilting her into staying on. "What were you looking at over here, anyway?" he asks, but he's curious rather than challenging.

"Nothing. Another thing of interest that turns out to have nothing to do with this case." When she points at the ground, so he too can see the thing that caught her attention. It's a tattered mitten, too small to have fit any adult. "Probably belonged to a neighbor kid or got pulled off a snowman by the wind and dropped here."

"Or maybe it belonged to a nephew," he suggests, taking his eye of the scrap of red outerwear.

"What's going on?" Whitney calls, but when they turn to look, she's not facing their direction. Instead she's watching as Father Joe also sinks to his knees, but Scully can tell that he's done this deliberately, not falling like she has.

By the time they make their way over to them, Father Joe is saying something to Drummy. "...She ran away. She tried to escape. There were two men. Well, she couldn't. He pushed her down," Father Joe's voice is as ragged as the mitten now. "It was right here, then they put her in the back."

"Where?!" Whitney demands to know, and Scully idly wonders if her urgency is because the agent thinks he's a real psychic, or because she thinks he's confessing.

"In the car. No, it was a truck. A truck with something on it."

"We have to find her!" Whitney doesn't seem to notice how frantic she sounds.

Moaning, Father Joe covers his face, then says through his fingers, "She's in pain. Great, great pain."

"Tell me where!" Whitney demands, shaking his shoulder to get his attention when he hesitates too long.

"I don't know," he says querulously. "I can't see."

"We need to find her!"

"I can't see."

"Because he's pulling it out of his ass," Drummy says scornfully. Then he stomps off, leaving the three of them to deal with the weeping man.

Scully spots blood on the snow, and points at it until Whitney and Mulder both notice. "Father Joe?" Mulder asks worriedly.

This has him lifting his head in response. There's blood seeping out from under his closed eyelids.

"Call an ambulance!" Scully snaps at Whitney. She might not like the psychic, but that doesn't get in the way of her doctoring instincts. Leaning down towards him, she begins to ask a series of questions beginning with did something get in his eyes, but Father Joe just whispers no each time.

* * *

The ride home feels tense to Scully, and she eventually realizes it's because Mulder has said very little since they left Father Joe at the E.R. with Whitney and Drummy. Even with the few hours' sleep they got before they went to the Hoover building, Scully is feeling tired and more than a little irritable. She's tried to be a good sport, but now it feels like he's shutting her out.

Although it's her instinct to snap "what's your problem" she opts for a lower level of hostility. "Cat got your tongue?" she asks. When he says nothing, she sighs. "I guess you'll be going back out with them later."

"Yes..." He turns from the road long enough to give her a look that she doesn't like.

"Don't look at me like that. Have I tried to stop you from continuing to work with them?"

"No," he admits.

This doesn't give her the satisfaction it should. "So what's the problem?" she wants to know.

"I just have been thinking about something," he begins. "Do you really think that there's something different about April and William? That they're tuned into something most other people aren't?"

She shifts uncomfortably, cursing the seat belt for pressing awkwardly against her belly. The baby doesn't seem to like it much either, judging by the viciousness of the kicks. "I think I have to believe that. They know things that it's impossible for them to have learned through everyday means."

"I thought you did," he says, nodding thoughtfully. "I really thought you did." She cringes, waiting for him to accuse her of just saying that to humor him. But the next words out of his mouth are, "Which is why I really can't understand what's going on with you now."

"What's going on with me'?" she repeats, not bothering to disguise how insulting she finds the comment. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you believe that there are people who can dream of a cousin they've never met and accurately describe the child's systematic abuse, or who can predict if they're having a brother or sister-"

"That prediction is always meaningless, Mulder," she interrupts. "Your odds of being right are always 50-50. Well, at least with a singleton birth, anyway."

"And April dreaming about Addy when no one knew she even existed?"

Scully leans back against the headrest. "That's harder to explain. There is no other explanation than she dreamed something that really happened."

"If April dreaming about another little girl hundreds and hundreds of miles away is somehow plausible to you, why are you so sure that Father Joe is a fraud?"

"Because our children are innocent," she snaps. "If gifts like this are given by God, don't you think He picks people who are worthy of his love to bestow them upon?"

"Yes," Mulder agrees, and for a moment she feels good that she's gotten him to see it her way. Maybe that means he'll leave the search for the missing agent to the FBI. She has nothing against Bannan, especially since she's never even met her, but the odds of her being alive still are laughingly small.

But before she can suggest that Bannan is probably beyond saving, Mulder asks, "But what if the gift wasn't given to him by God?"

She doesn't have an answer for that.


	6. A Squeal of Brakes

Later That Morning  
Boston Museum of Science

Luke is frowning as he takes a Hello My Name Is sticker from Gibson and sticks it to

his shirt. The kids, all wearing royal blue tee shirts and nametags, are darting around and talking loudly. Luke's expression doesn't change as he watches them.

"Are you sure you're up to this?" Gibson asks quietly. "I know you haven't been sleeping lately." It looks like Luke is going to accuse him of snooping so he points at his face. "Major dark circles going on, Luke."

In Gibson's estimation Luke had been in good spirits while they were home for Christmas break and at the beginning of the semester, but for the past few weeks he's been rather quiet. Not everyone is thrilled to be finishing college, so Gibson chalks it up to that. It makes him wonder if Luke's worried about midterms and/or their acceptance into the graduate program, but given their grades and the praise heaped on all their games he thinks they're both a shoo-in. Being bound to be accepted doesn't necessarily mean that neither of them will worry needlessly about it anyway.

If Gibson hopes Luke will open up to him about what's been bothering him, he's to be disappoint "I'm fine," Luke says with forced cheer." I've been looking forward to this."

Gibson gives him a skeptical look. "You've been looking forward to chaperoning kids at the museum?"

Frankly, he'd expected an outright rejection of Katie's request that he join the tutoring center's roster of additional grownups helping overseeing the visit, but Luke had agreed. It made Gibson wonder if everyone was a potential victim of Katie puppy dog looks, or just men between 18-30. Not that he worried that Luke had any untoward feelings towards Katie: Luke had announced that he was dating Mr. Mulder's oldest niece the week Adrianna turned eighteen. Everyone else pretended that the couple had spontaneously begun dating in November, but Gibson had gotten him to admit that they'd been dating longer than that. He hadn't asked how much longer because he didn't really want to know. In his opinion Luke was being treated pretty civilly considering Adriana's a high school senior.

"Is that so hard to believe?" Luke asks defensively. Gibson is confused at first, his wandering thoughts having him lose track of their conversation. "I like kids."

"Uh... sure." Gibson's eyes follow two of the kids as another chaperon keeps them from climbing on a sculpture. There are still six kids who haven't been assigned a chaperon and they're probably the best behaved there at the moment. At this second all six are looking up at models suspend from the ceiling. "Three each," he tells Luke. "Which ones do you want?"

Luke shrugs and points to the three nearest. "Them, I guess."

"Not Alice," Gibson says more sharply than he intends to once he gets a better look at the kids they're walking up to. His brother gives him an odd look and he can feel heat rising to his cheeks. "Oh, it's just that she's a handful. I'll take her."

"Okay... why don't I take the boys, then? I could probably use more practice figuring out little boys after only being around Hannah and Becca."

"Prepping for when Jon-Jon's mobile?" Gibson asks. He can remember how surprised he and Hannah were when their baby sister got on her feet and began to destroy things. A baby boy will probably cause even more property damage.

To his surprise Luke seems bothered by the question, tempting him to break brotherly code of conduct and sift through his thoughts to figure out what's wrong because he's beginning to doubt it's grad school. But as quick as it came Luke gets over it. "I guess. And if we're going to someday market games to little knuckleheads, we should learn how they think, how they behave in the wild," he adds before Gibson can suggest that the Mulders would probably lend them some kids. It's probably just as well considering Becca's arrival was the result the last time. Not that he had anything against more siblings, but they'd hardly seen Jon-Jon yet and he suspected an even bigger age gap would make them even less close to any younger kids. Their folks seem like they're through with babies, but so had the Mulders...

"Have fun," Gibson says at last, feeling like he should say something.

Luke looks mildly alarmed. "You don't think we should keep our groups together," he asks nervously.

"It's usually up to the kids."

"Right..."

When they reach the kids, Gibson clears his throat to get their attention. "Sydney, Alice, Kennedy, you're with me. Adrian, Juan, Caleb, be nice to my brother Luke, or you'll regret it."

''He's your brother?" Kennedy, an eight-year-old with raven hair and an attitude, asks skeptically. "You don't _look_ like brothers."

Before he can patiently launch into his usual explanation, Alice smiles in a way that reaches her brown eyes. "Gibson's adopted, silly."

"You are?"

He nods, bothered once more by something Alice has said or done. Even after all this time telling Katie that he doesn't think Alice should remain part of the tutoring group falls on deaf ears; because Katie still doesn't know about his gift, she's decided that he has just taken an irrational dislike to the little girl. And her older sister, he reminds himself. Charlotte pegs his not-quite-right meter too.

_How can you tell someone who doesn't know you read minds how upsetting it was when you realized you'd met someone whose mind couldn't be read? You can't_, Gibson reminds himself impatiently. And he sure can't tell her that he's growing more sure that Alice can read his.

"Come on," he tells the kids. "Let's go see the dinosaurs."

The kids cheer and all six decide to stick together, much to Luke's relief. Not to Gibson's, though. Not when he has to keep an eye on a child he doesn't like or trust.

* * *

Gibson keeps a close eye on Alice as they make their way through the museum. Considering 3/4ths of their group is under the age of ten, they detour a lot on their way to the dinosaur exhibit. All it takes is one kid stopping to look at something to divert the attention of all six kids who follow the first to allow themselves to get derailed.

"So..." Luke leans in while they watch them gawk at yet another distraction. "Do you think Katie's really going to want to take these guys here overnight?"

"We'll see." This daytime trip is a theoretical dry run for a night at the museum, a program that allows kids and their chaperons to get to do some after-hours programming and sleep in the museum.

"Uh... I'm not spending the night here with them if she does. Sorry, bro."

"I don't blame you." Looking at the kids he calls "Guys! Dinosaurs?"

"Oh yeah!" Caleb cries, leading the charge back to Luke and Gibson.

Like a row of ducklings, the rest fall into line and race back to them too. If they hadn't nearly knocked over a three-year-old and his mother, he probably wouldn't be cringing or Luke covering his face.

"That's it," Luke declares irritably, and all six kids look up at him with wide eyes. "If you can't stick together, and near us, I'm going to lash you together with our belts."

"You're not wearing a belt," Kennedy points out.

Without missing a beat, he points at the gift shop window. "Those scarves they sell would work just as well."

The kids all give each other looks as if to ask 'he wouldn't really do that would he?' and it's clear from their expressions that they don't know. Gibson smiles inside, glad that Luke is the one who decided to take a stand: the kids don't know him, so they don't know if he's serious or not, and they waver towards behaving due to this.

"We'll be good," Juan promises.

"You'd better be. Now let's go to the dinosaurs you keep saying you want to see so badly without any more detours. And no running into anyone else!"

Somehow, this seems to work and they get to the exhibit without any further problems. Inside the large room it seems safe to let them explore, at least after Luke demands that they all pinkie swear that they'll stay in the room.

Despite feeling a little frazzled, Gibson begins to enjoy looking at the dinosaurs. It's a little disappointing that there are more life-size models than actual bones, but that doesn't seem to bother the kids any.

"Hey, look at this Gibson!" Sydney calls, and he looks up to see that the girls are clustered around a display that holds the skeletons of other, considerably smaller, animals. He imagines that the point of having them there is to show how immense the actual dinosaur skeletons (although he suspects the ones made of bones might be casts) are.

"Isn't this neat?" Kennedy asks him, forgetting to be snotty for once. "I had no idea how many ribs snakes have. They're like all ribs, aren't they?"

"And spine," he suggests.

"Oh yeah, that holds the ribs."

To Gibson's confusion the skeleton they're looking at begins to shake. At first he wonders if it's someone in museum design's idea of a feature, but nothing seems designed to do that. It's very like an extremely localized, extremely small earthquake. Whipping his head around, he can't see anything else shaking. But over Kennedy's gasps of alarm or amazement, he hears another sound: Alice giggling.

When he spins to look at her, she winks.

And by the time he turns back to the snake skeleton, it's still again. Unlike his stomach.

* * *

Later That Afternoon

Not burdened with housing a tiny human, Mulder finds himself getting up well before Scully does. He notices dark circles under her closed eyes, and smoothes the covers over her after he gets out of their bed, and leaves the room quietly. She needs the sleep.

Alan's gone to get the youngest kids, so it's nice to have the house to himself for a little while. He makes coffee, and sits at the kitchen table, wondering why it's about two feet closer to the cabinets than it usually.

He's only halfway through the sports section when he hears the rasp of Scully's slippers across the tiles. Trying not to look disappointed, he turns to her and says, "I thought you'd sleep for a while longer."

"My mom's coming over," she reminds him.

"Oh." He'd forgotten to ask her if she planned to cancel the visit and it's now apparent she didn't. Maybe she hadn't expected to be out all night.

"I'm going to get dressed," she says pointedly.

"Right, me too."

He looks longingly at his coffee, wishing there was time to savor it. There isn't, so he gulps it down, needing the caffeine even if he can't linger over it.

* * *

Maggie arrives after they've gotten dressed and Mulder has guzzled another mug of coffee. The first thing she does it to hug her daughter and tell her how good she looks. Scully just nods, but he wonders if she thinks her mother is as full of it as he does. His normally gorgeous wife looks extremely tired, and he's beginning to feel guilty for having asked her to remain out with him all night, especially since they don't seem to be much closer to finding Bannan.

"How are you feeling?" Maggie finally asks, giving Scully a chance to say something after speaking breathlessly for a minute.

"Like a middle-aged woman who stayed up all night trying to get a self-proclaimed psychic to admit he's a crank," Scully says sourly.

Maggie looks surprised. "You're doing an episode about a psychic?"

Blinking, Mulder says, "Uh, no. We were asked to help look for a missing FBI agent, a friend of John's."

"And his friend was kidnapped by a psychic?" His mother-in-law looks more confused than he feels.

"No. Supposedly one knows where she is," Scully complains. "And you'll love this, he's a defrocked priest."

"He is?" Maggie asks cautiously.

"He is. He molested a bunch of boys. And you wondered why I refused to consider having Sammy be an alterboy."

Mulder says nothing: he didn't approve of the idea either, but his reasons went beyond rumors of abuse.

"The priests at our church would never...!" Maggie sputters, taking the bait.

"You're right. But what if they left and less trustworthy men took over for them?" Scully asks with a shrug, obviously not bothered that she's offended her mother.

"You say that like there are a ton of priests who are just dying to get their hands on kids."

Scully's arched brows as much as ask 'aren't there?' but she doesn't actually ask that, which Mulder considers something of a blessing.

"Most priests wouldn't dream of doing anything like that," Maggie continues defensively.

"But you can't tell by looking can you?" Scully challenges her. Eventually Maggie bites her lip and shakes her head. "The man we met last night looks like Santa Claus minus the paunch. He might not look like a dangerous predator, but he is one."

As she says this, he idly wonders when Joe's crimes were committed. He knows she knows, but he's too tired himself to consider winding her up more by asking about it. If he finds himself desperate to know, he can use the internet himself.

"Well..."

A door hinge squeaks and a voice cries "Grandma!" before the speaker comes into view.

Zoe runs over to Maggie and throws her arms around her.

Her twin, on the other hand, wants to talk to him instead. "Daddy, did you and Mommy catch the bad guy last night?"

"Not yet."

"Uncle John says you're gonna."

"I'm glad he's got faith in me," Mulder tells her.

"Can we have a tea party, Grandma?" Zoe wheedles, apparently uninterested in the other conversation.

For a moment Maggie looks torn, but she gives her daughter a sidelong glance and says "Sure, for a little while." Apparently she's regretting the visit, or at least where their conversation has gone.

"Come on, Brianna!" Zoe insists, practically pulling her sister by the arm.

Maggie wanders after them, looking a little more relieved than Mulder likes. In the other room he hears Alan talking to William, so he decides to see what they're up to. The nanny is probably about to go home, but Mulder has grown to like him, so he'd like to chat with him for a couple of minutes, if only to give his wife a few minutes to calm down.

* * *

If Mulder thought he'd get to have some peace after Maggie leaves, he's to be sorely mistaken. No sooner does she leave that the kids get home from school, and Reyes drops by with Jon-Jon. The infant is sleeping in his baby seat.

The very first thing Reyes does after putting her son down is to give them both hugs, and he thinks that Scully looks as surprised by this as he is. After she lets them go, she says, "Thanks so much for helping to look for Monica. That feels weird... but anyway, John won't tell you, but he's really hoping she's found alive. I don't know her as well, but he and Leyla really liked her."

"I hope we find her," Mulder offers, and he notices that Scully stiffens as soon as the words are out of his mouth. It disappoints him because it's obvious that she's hoped that he'll tell the FBI he's no longer interested in working with them either.

"The odds aren't too good, but I'm still-"

The angry squeal of brakes shuts her up, and she gives them alarmed look.

Without even thinking about it, Mulder bolts out of his chair and runs outside. Three of the kids have been playing outside, and he needs to reassure himself that they're okay.

"David! Jared! Christopher!" he shouts, looking around frantically.

His heart stops its erratic stuttering in his chest when the three of them round the corner. "Yeah, Dad?" David asks worriedly. It's obvious that they haven't been playing in front of the house, or anywhere near the road.

"I just heard a car..." Nevermind. Why don't you go back to whatever you were doing?"

"Uh huh," they agree, giving him odd looks.

They return to the backyard, and he almost goes into the house deciding that the car they heard just needs a brake job, when he notices something on the side of the house, to the right of their driveway.

A sinking feeling fills him as he walks over to it and sees a splash of blood on the snow. "Damn," he complains sadly.

* * *

_a/n: are you there readers? It's me, Neoxphile. I could sure use some more readers' feedback to encourage me as I try to tackle my first chapter of the next story...well, after I wrap up the next two chapters of **The Hard Edges of Things**, that is._


	7. What Christopher Finds

When Mulder comes inside, his face is grim enough to make Scully worry.

"What's the matter?" Scully demands to know. "Were the boys near the road-"

He shakes his head. "A cat got hit by a car out in front of the house. I think she must've been a stray because I've never noticed her around."

"Is she dead?" Scully asks.

"Definitely."

"Oh no," Reyes groans, looking horrified.

"Yeah," Mulder says forlornly. He ducks into the kitchen and returns with a big paper bag and a pair of rubber gloves that haven't been used since the time the dishwasher broke and couldn't be fixed until after a holiday. "With the way the ground's frozen, it's a blessing we dug that hole for the tree April wanted and couldn't get."

Scully winces. She hopes April doesn't object to having the hole that was supposed to be for an apple tree usurped for a far less pleasant job. She'll understand, she hopes.

"At least it's not a neighbor's pet," Reyes comments after Mulder sighs and goes back outside.

"That's true."

"So, what do you make of the psychic the FBI's using?"

"Not much," Scully says acidly, then launches into a tirade about the bad father.

She's still on a roll when Mulder comes back, and even he doesn't dare object to the things his wife is saying about the man they're working with. After several minutes, Mulder tentatively tries to interject. "I don't think he-"

But before he can get any farther than that before their twin sons skitter into the room, coming to a wide-eyed stop in front of Scully. "Mom! Mom! You won't believe what Christopher has!"

It takes Christopher almost a minute longer than his brothers to come in, and it's almost immediately Obvious why he's moving so slowly and cautiously: he's holding on to the edges of his shirt, and a trio of kittens are cradled in the pouch of fabric he's fashioned.

"Uh oh," Mulder moans.

The boys look at him in alarm. "What?"

"David, Jared, you need to go outside and see if you find any more kittens."

"Why would there be more kittens?" Jared wants to know. "Where did _these_ kittens come from?"

"Jared..." Scully says quietly. "Daddy just buried a stray cat that got hit by a car. We need to make sure all her kittens are found."

"Oh, right!" He and his twin rush back outside. The door bangs behind them, making the kittens stiffen in alarm.

"I think I found them all," Christopher says quietly. He looks down at the kittens as he speaks.

"Hopefully," Mulder says. "But we still need to check."

"Hey, Chris, I'm going to pick up one of the kittens," Reyes warns him before plucking one of the kittens out of his hammocked shirt. The one she picks up is white and almost impossibly fuzzy. The two remaining, one orange and the other a pale gray, cuddle closer together in alarm.

Reyes handles the kitten gently, not minding when it hisses at her. "About ten weeks old," she pronounces. When Scully looks surprised, she grins. "My abuela had a lot of cats when I was a kid. I got good at figuring out the ages and-" She turns the kitten around so she can see under its tail. "Boy."

"Ten weeks," Mulder asks. "Old enough to eat food instead of being bottle fed?"

"Oh yeah, definitely." She looks from the kitten in her hands to the two Christopher is still holding. "Are you going to look for homes for them?"

Mulder shoots Scully a look before holding up his hands. "We don't need three kittens, so yes."

Reyes looks thoughtful for a moment, then takes the gray kitten from Christopher too. "John and I have been talking about getting kittens for each of the girls. Taking these two off your hands is safer than going the Craigslist route. If that's okay?"

"Sure," Scully says automatically. Then she notices how unhappy Christopher looks.

"I'll need to bring them to the vet to get checked out and get their shots, should I tell the vet you're looking for a home for the last one, in case he's got someone trying to find a kitten?"

"No..." Christopher protests softly.

'"What?" Scully asks, but he doesn't respond. Cradling the last kitten to his chest, Christopher looks up at them instead, his eyes filled with longing and an unspoken hope.

For a moment she feels an ache deep within her heart, but of course it's not a physical pain. There are times when she worries about this middle son of hers. He's not as boisterous as most of his older siblings and less needy than the younger ones. Because he tends to be on the quiet side and never asks for much, it's possible for him to get lost in the shuffle.

Looking over at Mulder, she sees that he's looking at Christopher too. When she catches his eye, she asks a silent question. He's immediately contemplative rather than confused, so she knows that he understands the question. Eventually he shrugs, conveying a 'why not' answer.

"No thank you," she tells Reyes. Then she takes the orange kitten from Christopher, who only gives it up reluctantly. "But could you tell us if it's a boy or a girl?" she asks, handing it to Reyes.

After a few seconds, Reyes hands it back. "Boy. All three are boys."

Christopher looks surprised when Scully hands the kitten back to him. "If we're going to keep him, he needs a name."

"We're going to keep him?" his voice shakes as he asks that.

"Yup. But if David and Jared find any others, we're finding them new homes," she cautions.

"I understand," Christopher says happily. By this time the kitten has crawled on to his shoulder.

"What's his name?" Reyes prompts. Her expression suggests she too had hoped they'd keep the last one. It makes Scully wonder if she asked about the vet to provoke a decision.

"Wallace," Christopher says firmly.

"Wallace?" Mulder repeats, not fully hiding his disbelief. "How come?"

"Well, I'd call him Charles Wallace after the boy in those awesome books Sammy's helping me read, but we already have Uncle Charlie whose real name is Charles, I think, I'm pretty sure, so my kitten hasta just be Wallace. I think he likes it, doesn't he looks like he likes it?" Christopher says, using more words together all at once than Scully can remember when. He's been petting the kitten as he talks and now the small kitten's whole body rumbles with a purr.

"Yup, I think he likes it," Mulder agrees.

A cold draft beats the boys back into the kitchen. "There aren't any more," David announces.

"You're sure?" Mulder looks about ready to go look himself.

"We're sure," Jared agrees. "We counted the tracks. Four sets, a big set and three little ones. The big ones musta been their mom's." He looks down as he says the last, which isn't surprising considering the mom is now planted in their backyard.

Mulder relaxes. "Smart."

"Thanks." He looks proud of himself. "What's going to happen to the kittens now?"

"Well, John and Monica are going to take the white one and the gray one," Scully says.

"What about the orange one?" David asks.

"His name is gonna be Wallace," Christopher announces.

"Christopher gets to keep him?" The twins goggle comically.

"We get to keep him," Scully corrects gently. But watching the kitten interact with Christopher she suspects already that no matter how they label their new pet, it'll be Christopher's. "But we're going to have to keep him away from Teliko and Piper until he's gone to the vet for a checkup, shots, and deworming," and a sterilization procedure much more drastic than Mulder's, she adds silently. "Why don't you give me the kitten and the three of you go downstairs and find a cat carrier? The old one, please."

"Yup!" This time Christopher doesn't balk at handing their new kitten over before dashing after the twins.

"We lucked out not having any kids scared to go in basements."

"So far," she says, hand not holding the kitten going to her belly. "We also lucked out that these guys are super friendly for feral kittens."

Mulder nods, but Reyes says "no" so they stare at her. She's been playing with the kittens but she stops, shaking her head. "Their mother might have been without a home for a while, but she wasn't feral. If she had been, she'd of taught these guys to fear humans, and obviously they don't."

"You think she was a pet someone tired of?"

"Or the owner was elderly and died or their house got foreclosed on." Reyes shrugged. "Or they just got tired of her."

"That's terrible."

"But it happens," Reyes replies. "People do that sort of thing."

"And worse," Mulder says darkly.

So darkly she knows that he's no longer thinking of the type of people who make no effort to rehome a house cat they don't want or can't keep. He's not wrong, she thinks with a sigh. She just wishes that she could really believe that the young woman who'd been dragged from her home was still alive.

* * *

That Night

"I can feel you thinking," Mulder says eventually.

Since he's spooned up against her she can feel his warm breath on her cheek that's more pleasant a feeling in February than it is in June. She'll be as big as a house by then too, so she thinks they'll be extra glad of having a king size bed come early summer. Right now, though, they're both huddled in the center of it, and the far reaches of their blankets are too distant to be warmed by their body heat.

Scully sighs and reaches over to turn on the light on her nightstand. It's not bright enough on its own to bother their eyes. "Sorry, I can't sleep."

"Actually, I have a little something for that," he teases, pressing himself up against her so she can feel exactly what he means.

"Uh, not so little," she replies, turning her head to kiss him.

"You know, Scully, flattery will get you everywhere with me."

"Down boy," she says, laughing. When she pouts she reaches for his cheek. "I'll take you up on what I sense you're offering later, but I'm hoping we can talk now if we're both still awake."

"Sure, as long as you intend to honor that rain check."

"Don't I always?"

"Um hum. What's on your mind?"

She rolls over. Then she rubs her belly because it becomes clear from sudden jabs that she's now disturbed the baby too. "Is it insane to take on a puppy and a kitten at this point in our lives?" Scully asks, yawning. Her hands are folded across the still small mound of her belly.

Which Mulder gently pokes. "No more so than taking on another baby."

"We didn't have a choice about that," she says sharply.

He nods slowly. They've never really talked about his own feelings about abortion, and he's always gotten the sense that she feels he must agree it's wrong. Fortunately, he does agree with her, so they're not at odds. Before he had a family of his own his feelings about the sanctity of life were less strong, but now that he's done so much to assure that their family exists...

"Sure. And I think we've survived a lot more chaos than a baby, a puppy _and_ a kitten could ever team up to throw at us," Mulder tells her with a smirk.

A visit to the walk in vet clinic nearby, which Mulder told her is a genius idea given it's the quadruped equivalent of an urgent care center, has earned Wallace a clean bill of health. He's been giving de-worming pills anyway considering most strays have worms, but other than that he's in great shape. They'll make an appointment to get him neutered soon, too.

"You sound pretty confident," Scully says, amused.

"I'm pretty sure it'd take a lot more puppies and kittens to add up to a second baby, and we managed that twice."

"That's true," she yawns. "But we were younger then. And Alan's not going to nanny the four-legged babies."

He gives her a look as if to suggest that he smugly believes Wallace will be as easy to care for as Daisy is. Mulder leans over her to kiss her, but then looks comically surprised when she pushes him away to sit up. "Oh. Speaking of dogs and cats, there was something weird on the toxicology report Doggett e-mailed me."

"The victim was a werewolf?" When she looks confused, he gives her a long suffering look. "You said 'speaking of dogs and cats'," he prompts.

She blinks. "The report indicates that there were traces of a drug commonly given to patients being treated with radiation-"

"He's Godzilla?" Mulder asks, reminding her that that on Saturday she'd woken up late and discovered Mulder and all four of their daughters in the den watching the Matthew Broderick version of Godzilla. It might have alarmed her if she hadn't immediately realized the girls were helping him make sarcastic comments about the movie.

Rolling her eyes, she goes on. "There were also traces of a drug called acepromazine."

"Why's that weird?"

"Acepromazine is an animal tranquillizer."

"Crap," he says, rolling away from her and getting out of bed. "Now I can't sleep. You've infected me too, Scully."

"Mulder?" she asks, torn between being amused and alarmed.

He wanders into their bathroom, turning on a light bright enough to make him wince. "What is an animal tranquillizer doing in the tissue sample of a man's severed arm?"

"I can't even begin to speculate," she admits. It takes her a bit of effort to lever herself out of bed too, and she thinks ruefully that it's only going to get harder over the next few months.

"He said he heard barking dogs," Mulder tells her, voice somewhat muffled. She's not too surprised to see this is because he's got his head in their medicine cabinet.

"Who?" she asks.

"Father Joe."

"Mulder, what are you doing?" Scully watches him take something out of the medicine cabinet and he looks down at it. It seems to be a prescription for one of their pets considering his remark but obviously not a tranquillizer.

"Is it a tranquillizer you might give a dog?" he asks.

All of the sudden she feels very tired. "He's a charlatan, Mulder. He pulls these so-called visions out of thin air, and now he's got you straining to connect the dots for him."

"When I see a man cry tears of blood at a crime scene he recognizes without ever having visited before, I'm willing to go out on a limb. Do you know what I'm saying?" When she doesn't say anything he asks, "Tears of blood, Scully. Some trick, huh? How do you fake that?"

They both jump when a cellphone near their bed rings. Scully realizes it's hers, and is tempted to cuss out the caller for calling so late in the night. But, unfortunately, the number is one she recognizes. "Hello?" she asks, wondering if she should have bothered to.

"Hello, Dr. Scully?" Agent Drummy asks. The background noise suggests he's driving in a car.

"Yes."

"I have Dakota Whitney for you."

After a moment, Whitney gets on the call. "I'm sorry to call at this hour."

"Has there been a break?"

"Did they find her?" Mulder asks. When she glances in his direction she sees that he's standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the bathroom. The light from behind him frames him oddly, almost making him glow.

"We're pursuing another lead," Whitney says.

"The same source," Scully says, realizing that she can hear Father Joe in the background.

"The same source, new news," Whitney explains.

Then she clearly hears Father Joe exclaim "It's here. It's here. Turn up ahead, at the barn."

When Scully looks back at Mulder, she's not surprised to see that he's giving her a puppy-dog pleading look. "Someone has to stay with the kids," she tells him firmly, and he deflates. She'd really meant it when she claimed to have been through earlier in the day, but from the way he looks like he's been slapped, it's clear that he didn't believe her.

"You're right," he says uncomfortably. "I'm on my own." He sits on the bed, reaching for his shoes.

"Mulder?" she asks, feeling bad when he looks up with a hopeful expression. "Call me when you get there, okay?"

"I will," he promises, then goes back to tying his shoes.

* * *

_Hi there, quietest readers. I mean you, the silent majority who are reading but don't say much. The story after next is supposed to jump ahead to 2012 and is all plotted out. If you'd like to see a story set **in between **2008 and 2012 (and you know, see the new baby when its older than just a few months old and younger than 3.5 years old) give your feedback to this story and the next __often like more vocal readers do __so I can provide my cowriter with sufficient evidence that an additional fic or two in this series would be appreciated and worth the time to write it... _


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